My school has a yugioh club and before covid we got about 30 people a week who already knew how to play or wanted to know how to play so most of the people at out locals are from the school. Most of the people who try learning also stay.
I like how back in the GX era the idea of a duel academy sounded ridiculous. Like, what you would learn? How to fusion summon? pff... but then we got to a place where i 100% could see an actuall university-level course on each summoning method just because of how fucking confusing some particular interactions can be.
When synchro monsters came out back in the day, my first thought was: "Well... I really hope the game doesn't get any more weird summoning mechanics because that would make it too convoluted" Then pendulum and links came and... Yeah, here we are indeed.
@@DanielMartinez-nw1pn links aren't hard to summon at all, imagine a synchro monster that doesn't need a tuner or levels and you can also use one monster for a link it's beautiful, screw the pen summon though that was a mistake
Everyone at my local game store is overly obnoxious to me and laugh at my deck for not having $90 cards in it. I quit yugioh months ago. If the players want to have new people to play with, first they should learn some damn manners.
I revisited YGO about 5 years ago all excited and nostalgic, and while doing some trades and purchases on a known YGO site with someone who appeared to be a reputable player (consistent finisher in nationals), got outright scammed. When I brought it up with the folks at the local I attended, they were just like "oh yeah he does that a lot". Noped right out of the scene immediately.
@@rossomex12 Sad to hear that. My local community (which not that local) already sick with meta since Firewall Dragon's madness and now mostly play Yugioh for fun-play so they are more open to new player and even to people who only buy waifu card. I sick with those people who like to bully a newcomer such as adult Pokemon players who like to bully kid players online and post it on RU-vid.
Funny they make fun of you for not having a 90$ card, when i can almost say (without ever being at your locals) that there are more than 1 of those guys with 90$ cards that smell worse than a skunk.
I think the biggest problem is all the unwritten rules and interactions that are actually not printed in the cards effect, that makes it very confusing even for seasoned players.
This is an actual problem. While I know the rules, it's not a good idea to keep them. A good example is, if a Danger!! Monster is discarded for cost, and then banished by D.D. Crow, its effect doesn't go off, cus it by rulings, never actually hit the graveyard. Since it is not written specifically in the rulings, then it shouldn't exist. It is a fun detail for me to play with, but it's not fun for any new players that simply don't understand. They really also need to do away with the when effects. They're dumb, new players don't like em', hell not even old players like em', and they really don't serve any purposes for the game state other than being nevative. Seriously, somebody name one good benefit of a "when" effect... Spoiler alert, there is none, other than to confuse the ever lasting shit out of people. They need to also do away with FTKs, u know Konami is always so afraid of FTKs, so make it so that they're impossible, simply make a new ruling where u can't take damage the first turn. And finally, I think another issue is the Ban List... KONAMI, get rid of the ban list and just start errataing cards, because yeah, u don't set rotations and the whole ban list thing is still not working... Pokemon is more popular, Magic The Gathering is more popular, clearly Yugiohs ban list idea is not working, people wanna still use those cards, but u can water them down to where they're still fair. And instead of making old archtypes better when they're already good, example is Draitron and Virtual World, start using those resources to make bad archtypes actually good and competitive, that way fans can have a wider variety. Errata does not always mean a bad change, a good example is Topologic Zeroboros, which is an example of an errata making it better than it was when released.
Yeah like how is a new player going to know a card like Reckless Greed stacks to where if you play multiple on one turn you only skip two draw phases instead of skipping 4 or 6. That was something that made no sense to me. As a MTG player who got back into Yugioh, MTG preaches interpreting the text as literally as possible, with Yu-Gi-Oh that’s completely out the window for certain cards and rules. Not to mention there’s never an explanation of “why” only a “Konami said so”. I do love how you can email Konami rules questions though, they always answer me within a few days and I ask them a lot of stuff.
There's an issue with one player sitting there while another plays a ten minute turn and then losing if you don't have the right hand trap or cant break a board. You could just sit at home and play with yourself instead.
@Soniku Raharu I wish they would just reboot the game. Get rid of half the cards and most convoluted summoning mechanics (pendulum is fun, but it has to go, there's no justification for that much text in a card game). Just simplify it to make it easier for people to even get into. And 2 turn duels suck. They're fun to make your friend rage after they watch you spend a year setting up a board, but it's not an actual duel. Stop releasing all these cards that work together in a way where you set up your board on the first turn and win.
@Soniku Raharu This is why I will never actually physically get into the game. I'll play the video games for some quick fun, but I can't actually seriously get into yugioh.
ok magic player Im really sick of "This card may not be normal summoned or set, this card may only be special summoned by...." AH I really wish Yugioh just had a word like "Special Summon Only" or some single word for that long line of text that feels like its on more boss monsters than not
@@carlosmarte428 I don't see how adding keyword would cause much of the problem, some old magic card doesn't have keywords and you can still leave it as is. When there's a new reprint you just print the keywords, new players who memorized keywords can use the new cards, while old players can still use the old card, as long as it's the same card and they do the same thing I don't see the problem there.
Technically they do already shorten it. It's currently "can not be normal summoned/set. Must (first) be summoned by (insert summon effect here)." So it's currently 10 words that are the same, with "first" usually being there but not always (this DOES make a difference on how the card works). EDIT: Forgot to add this part in, i do agree that it should be shortened further, i don't think it needs a keyword though. Maybe "must be (first) summoned by (explanation of how to summon it)"
I wish the community would be more welcoming. Remember years ago playing a kid and he wasn't bad and I asked him to look at his deck and asked what his strategy was and he said he watched Zexal and Utopia was his favorite card so he built a deck around that and I gave him some advice on how to make it more consistent then I saw he only had 2 copies of Utopia so I gave him one I happened to have in my binder
Problem is, the majority of people playing yugioh aren't that welcoming, at least that's what I experienced. Most of them just concentrate on winning, making pluses by selling you the cards at horrible prices and giving you the dumbest explanations on why it's so expensive, you can't really do a rogue/fun deck, because the competitive people come and say "why you don't play x, this deck is so bad, play x,y and z instead of this garbage" etc. at a rate like that, people aren't really attracted on coming back anymore, because they just hear complaints from others in a condescending way, even though others won't play said deck.
@@Andy4995 True, also had bad experiences, though my last visit to a local pre covid which was full of kids was actually pretty nice, many of them were playing their favorite decks like bewd because of the anime. Have high hopes that this trend continous here.
I dont know if your trying to point this out, but thats why people forget what their/other peoples cards do. people don't want to read paragraphs when they play games lol
This is insane... Magic the Gathering literally has at least half a dozen different apps that has a card search database, rulings, and game news. YGO still has an issue with this? I admittedly still play YGO, but certain digital platforms like Duel Links.
Also MTG has a rulebook with their products (decks/fat boxes) that actually does a decent enough job of explaining the rules so you can read them and understand how to play. The YGO rulebook with the decks explains nothing about how to actually summon half the monster types there are.
For every nice person you meet you’ll also meet , someone who doesn’t shower, they rage when losing, don’t let you touch there cards, only sell and doesn’t trade, like to say when your wrong but doesn’t admit when there wrong, won’t walk you through there combo or go back to explain. THIS IS WHY NO ONE STARTS PLAYING ANYMORE.
Players are coming back to the game. I'm cool with players not being handsy with cards. I'm happy to ask to read a card but not hold it they can just set it in view for a moment The game needs to be more inclusive and teaching a new player can lead to new friendships. I'm building 2 decks. one cheaper but newer and more powerful metawise and then a more expensive flavorful deck I want for nostalgia sake a blend of new and old. Please try to bring in a new player of they need help you see or look lost when you combo off. God bless
The combo part is why i stopped playing yugo. This was when the BLS and XYZ dragon supoort started to release. After a while the combos become too much and the opponent would try to confuse the combo usually so you wouldn't know what the end result of the chain would be, and considering that half the card say you can do this or cant do that it just made it too much, especially when the person playing the cards who knew the short hand of the combo wouldn't tell you what was going on. I know its not their responsibility, but when u go 5+ cards deep into a combo you should be willing to back track even if I cant respond at that point.
@@GIO77ification I big agree with this. I know I’m not going to understand every card you are playing, especially for decks I’ve never seen, but please just tell me what I’m up against. What board am I even facing and are my moves viable? Some people just want to win the game but not play it.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Konami needs to make a "Duel Academy" series where they go over all the stuff you need to learn for the Yugioh TCG, from summoning mechanics to the hidden rulings. We'll be seeing new players then.
In other words, bring back the anime. Konami has actually spoken about that when a fan asked them, and they said that the animes aren't raking in enough money for them and to be fair, I blame it on bad writing, but Konami is right, I mean Yugioh Series 1 is the best easily, then Yugioh GX is very nostalgic, but it did get cancelled because Season 3 I believe was not doing so well. And Konami has already said that they will never make a dubbed season 4, cus it simply won't be making enough money. In other words, it all boils down to money, the card game is making them money, the anime, not so much. But in my opinion, the anime is definitely what will bring in new players, but the writing has to be better.
@@walkingcorpse1224 I agree but writing an original Yu-Gi-Oh story for 150 episodes on a weekly basis isn't exactly an easy job Also the reason why YGO Duel Monsters was the best is because it was a manga adaptation. It's easier to do a manga adaptation than an original story because all you have to do is pick which scenes to animate, which scenes to change etc.
@@walkingcorpse1224 the anime is a risky thing because it is itself just manga shilling. Sure GX to ARC-V got it backwards but that is all the anime is really useful for. Expecting FMA or something of its caliber to come out of it is way too much of a toll on them. Plus the anime never really explained what IS Yugioh TCG wise, especially the first one. The only one that had the potential to do so was GX but the writers didnt know what to do with the series.
I hope they will adapt the new Yu-Gi-Oh manga called "OCG Structures" into an anime. The protagonist actually is playing the real life OCG format with deckbuilding and stuff, it's a new breath of fresh air.
Yu-Gi-Oh is a confusing game. Honestly, knowing how to play Pokemon, Magic, the new Digimon card game, and even playing Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid and teenager, the game's a mess in my opinion.
Definitely, I've played everything, VS, Duel Masters, the ones you mentioned, the old Digimon game..and Yugioh has similar rules, but the card text just complicates things so much..lol, like, you have to look in detail at the way things are worded to make sure that cards will work the way you want them to. With most other games you can tell just by reading some cards, but Yugioh you have to like deep dive and double check rulings and all that.
@@HongFeiBai Yes! It's been a little stagnant though unless you purchased from the early release. COVID has taken a toll on its traction to gain a large audience, but yet there is still a respectable community! It's a blast!
@@markfuston2714 my biggest concerning Yu-Gi-Oh is how absolutely chaotic the gameplay is... Like when I see people playing it on RU-vid these days, them and/or their opponents will spend 5 minutes on the opening turn which results in them burning half their deck... From the view point of any other major TCG on the market, that's crazy. If you did that in Magic or Pokémon, you wouldn't get to play a second game because half your deck would end up on the ban list... It's bonkers, lol
The “judge discretion” is what made me stop playing to improve and try to be competitive. Countless times rulings fall to my opponents advantage because the judge at locals is friends with them. I say this because I’ve seen the same judge(s) change their verdict based on who’s matched with who. Now I just play for fun and laugh at the cardboard sweatlords. Great vid! 👍
Yu-gi-oh, in general, is more fun when u don't focus on meta, cuz that's when it becomes pricey and u have to spend like 600+700 dollars. I like your idea of having "weight classes" cuz idk if I want to struggle my madolches against like a dragon link or drytron
Me and my group are specialized in rituals but only one player we have that has "meta" is the one person we all gang up on even in free for all just because the sheer amount of negates that we dont want to deal with. We play competitively but dont focus on negates unless its in small doses.
We do have a "weight class" in Yu-Gi-Oh. It's known as the tier system, now it's not official it is there. Tier 0 is a tier not many decks find their way there but decks that do find their way there on on the quick path to be hit by the banlist Tier 1 is the current meta if a deck can be considered capable of fighting the best there is it's considered tier 1 Tier 2 is rogue decks madolches would be considered in this tier
Same. It's easier for us to get into yugioh cause most of is know what's in store. Others it's just harder jumping Into something people already been mastering for years.
@@imbrawler1591 at the same time for someone who hasn't played in a significant amount of time will still have a lot of problems. A lot has changed over the years, and a lot of people played when they were younger and so didn't follow all rules correctly. Myself included. But with the right friends and watching the right RU-vidrs it becomes a lot easier to fall back in place more than ever.
@@heftylad Exactly right. YugiTibers are a huge reason the community is the way it is. Without YugiTubers a huge chunk would be missing from Yugioh, and it would be impossible for even us to be at the level you have to be to play competitively. Which brings up my point that not every duelist has to play competitively. I even find it more fun to create "weaker decks" from past formats only allowing those cards to build decks. Then you can play a classic game of yugioh without all the intense, and complicated combos of 2021.
Yeah agreed. This and I think the OCG manga is something about making owning a card shop and learning the game by giving tips on how to play the game and apparently how to craft decks
At first I hated it, but then I noticed every effect had card disadvantage and if every card kinda sucks, its cool to have a bunch of effects require a discard effect cause... its not the end of the world to discard a baby dragon
Yeah I liked that old yugioh was about trying to make disadvantages an advantage. So like if you dump a baby dragon you would play off of getting back the baby dragon. Nowadays it's all, I dump baby dragon, I activate its effect, I chain with my card that pops and searches when a dragon type is discarded. I summon back baby dragon, and activate its effect to pop a card. Then I link summon into guard dragon-
I agree, as a new player I was taken aback by the huge card pool and the long card text. I cut my losses and bought a speed duel battle city box. Not overwhelming at all.
Nah. Its actually low. Its just looks like it when you started on a wierd time and all the people you can played with might as well have a master's degree on the game. Its juat that the Player Skill ceiling is either too high, or has no bounds!
Not exactly. Players can just buy 3 of the newer structure decks and make a strong deck. Im new coming back for the first time in 14 years. I bought 3 Order of the spellcasters decks and will make the Cimoooooo budget Endymion pendulum deck
@@lanhikari2464 you got this homie. Just buy 3 of the same structure deck that you think is cool and you can do well. Then if needed you can add some special cards later ; )
Budget wise, no. Yugioh has always been amazing at structure decks, while other card games like Pokemon only started the "Good deck in a box" last year.
Big one is it’s too expensive. Kids don’t have money so how can they afford cards that are strong enough to keep up 🆙 and won’t get banned for Konami’s profit. If you’re a parent I’ll rather buy my kid a tablet than a deck. 🤷🏾♂️
Basically that's how Yu-Gi-Oh! is meant be be played. Forget the high tier stuff. Just buy a starter deck and have fun with your buddies. That's how I still have fun with my friends and we are groups now.
I would just buy them a yu gi oh game like the tag force back in the day if they are interested in yugioh. No high cost, just the game and done, no meeting with people that I don't know of (especially in a mostly adult community) and probably more fun as they could live their anime fantasies.
Finally someone who sits there and says that calling someone a "bad player" is bad for the community. I hated people at our locals calling players bad. It's why I stopped playing and I switched to Vanguard. Vanguard also has this issue as well. It's a game people. Be more inviting.
This is pretty common in every competitive community you join. In the FGC its super common. Very few people in competitive game communities have the drive to welcome new players because everyone is trying to win. Showing others the path to victory could potentially put you in the oath to a loss. I played a pendulum player recently who kept pend summoning without using his extra deck pends and although I wanted to mention this, I also didn't want to do so because it would've lowered my chances to win the game.
It's a competitive cardgame. If you can't stand being called bad, just get better. Or quit because you're apparently not competitively motivated. both fine.
I'm not a yugi-player, I play mtg, but I know the situation you're discribing. What I do, in tournament play, is similar. I will not help my opponent in any shape. In my mind that's what you sign up for when you go to a tournament: Use YOUR skills to win YOUR game. You're, so to speak "on your own" in that moment. What I do, however, is go over the mistakes my opponent made AFTER the game is resolved, so there's a learning experience. Because in my mind, it's hard/impossible to improve at something if you do not even know that you made a misktake.
@@profanemagic5671 the problem isn't that people are telling new players their mistakes its that they are doing it in a mean way and not an informative way.
you only need a meta deck at higher tier events and a lot of people buy the deck before just to sell it afterwards right to a vendor again, netting them a loss of like 20% the deck price. For locals you should be fine playing a halfway competitive strategy (this is where decks arent that expensive).
@@JanizMakudomaru you missunderstood me. The point was "get new players into ygo" and Rush duels for kids... and my point is: i don't think that kids which are happy with rush duels will switch to the Master rules when they like the Rus duel rules. It's basically a different game. It's not like Commander Format or something like that where the base rules are the same you only have a different restriction.
I recently got a friend to start playing Yugioh via the Legacy of the Duelist game. They have like 15 hours in the game now and have yet to build a deck in-game because its so overwhelming to do. And I'm not sure what to do about it, but deckbuilding I think is an underestimated hurdle in yugioh. Its not just that the process is very complicated (Which of you actually follow the 20 monster, 10 spells and 10 traps guideline that are mentioned in official products?) - netdecking isn't even feasible a lot of the time. If you don't have the 3 Ash Blossoms, what do you substitute? Can you play a certain archetype if you're down one or two cards? This is something I think this game has a major issue with compared to say, Magic. In Magic you can make a "random" deck work by just having the correct amount of lands and a decent mana curve. While your structure decks in mtg won't win you tournaments, you feel like you actually have a chance against better decks, where in yugioh, if you bring a starter deck against someone with a meta deck, you see absolutely no sunlight, you don't even get to play the game. I think the disparity between a weak deck and a strong deck in yugioh is extremely high, which is why I think formats could help with that. Draft/Limited Formats would be so good for the health of the game.
I think we will all come together as a community and Yugioh will be better. Im coming back and if money is an issue, players can just buy 3 of the newer structure decks and make a strong deck. Im new coming back for the first time in 14 years. I bought 3 Order of the spellcasters decks and will make the Cimoooooo budget Endymion pendulum deck
Legacy of the Duelist is a great tool. The search features are very robust, you can even pick a card you like and sort the rest of your library by cards that can interact and combo with it. You can build an entire deck on your own if you just select a single card first!
have them steal a challenge deck they liked, then help them to improve it, grinding all of a challenge deck's cards is pretty easy, spam surrender or exodia or crusadia otk till you get every card 3 times, so 165 times max and less than that for most, I've won a few ladder games just playing Dinomists straight from the challenge duel with no extra deck and a few changes (filler spell/trap removed, some mediocre traps in, messed with ratios a little 3 of the challenge deck cards I wanted more 1-2 of the ones I wanted less) beyond that 2 great resources for link evolution specifically are the youtube channel joninjo which has tons of deck profiles and the website linkevolutionpro which has search pages for finding what cards are in all the packs and challenge duels(there are also link evolution tournament decks from april on there if looking for that, though not a perfect representation of what's possible), the itsbradz discord also has a linkevolution specific deckbuilding channel if looking for advice on cards to substitute for missing ones or whether a deck works/is extremely strong '.'
As a new player to Yu-gi-oh, it's so daunting seeing all the different summoning conditions, learning about spell speeds and chaining, the huge number of different decks and card effects contained within them, etc. Having some sort of tutorial or rules collection system or something to help give new players a place to start would be so helpful!
After getting back into Yu-Gi-Oh after a 10 year gap I was just mind blown about how far each turn goes. I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's just very confusing seeing so many set ups and summons at once. Got lost pretty easily lol
it's a far cry from needing mana like mtg. if you can still do something with cards and effects it's crazy how much you can do on a turn. I haven't played since 2005. But heck, I'll try learning Endymion pendulums for my first deck. Order of the spellcasters 3X structure deck build.
I think something to watch out for is the fact that we no longer have an anime to promote the master duel/advanced format. Konami can keep on milking Kaiba and Yugi for years, but reruns and banking on those two alone aren't going to pull in new players.
Omg I'm so annoyed of the whole blue-eyes and dark magician legacy support. Its just so dumb that those decks get support ,but decks that really need support are getting bad or even no support at all, like galaxy/photon or volcanics.
@@IcyHyoudou maybe master duels might do that, but cross-platform like duel links. Even so, Konami should take a long hard look at the game and plan the direction they want it to go. But I found they'll do that.
@@hickknight oh nice :0 I'll have to look into master duels, that sounds really interesting. And honestly, i agree with that. Konami really does need to take a good hard look into what they could do for the future of the game. I don't know if you've heard, but major retailers like Walmart and Target are about to pull out of the tcg market and that's kinda bad :c good for card shops, but man does it hit in the memories of buying packs eons ago xd
down here in georgia and south carolina the community has been AMAZAZING with helping new peeps out. Im newer to the scene and super high ranking players took the time to show me. Everyone is mad cool out here in the yugioh scene!
I mean, at my locals it was basicaly the same. I go to locals in Aachen and we basicaly just have a Bunch of tournament players sitting there, with the few odd ones out. But most of them are so helpful that it probably, as long as a you have a little perseverance, it doesn't take long to build a competent Deck as a newbie so yeah. I think if you go to locals you'll have a pretty easy time learning ygo
Big wall of text incoming, I'm typing this as I'm watching the video so it's pretty much a stream of consciousness. I think we should implement a similar system to Pokémon with the age brackets at all types of events (rather than just Dragon Duels at premier events) to keep the similar ages together and form their own "community" without having to worry about getting kerb stomped by the meta players every week (obviously there may be these players in the lower age brackets but they're a little more sparse). However you are right that the game itself is too complicated. As much as demo days are great at giving a one off view into the game, the demos aren't really representative of the current game. You brought up the official simulator which I think would work as a bridge between the demos and playing the game "for real", maybe distributing free stuff for the simulator at the demo days. As a YCS judge myself I've had many thoughts and discussions with others about how the game could be improved organisationally and unfortunately a lot of the fixes would almost require a complete overhaul of the system which while not a bad thing may end up losing players in the short term and not provide enough of an improvement further down the line so I doubt we will see huge changes, although I'm happy to be proved wrong. Alternate formats is the thing that is growing MTG at the moment with commander now being THE way to play magic at the moment. Unfortunately again there may need to be an overhaul of product design. We can't do drafting with the current set design, we can't do a commander type format because of the lack of interactivity between cards because of the archetypes. The only alternate formats that seem to be actively played are historic formats but konami's attempt at this with generation duels was supported for one event then abandoned, which again highlights an issue with alternate formats that there needs to be support from stores and konami to actually run these events. I would love to play a traditional tournament but outside of a single ycs side event there's just nothing for it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
If I recall, the reason we don't see Traditional Format events, is because apparently not enough people show up. (This was stated by Konami) so while they hear the demand for it, they simply don't see it when it does happen. Also we do kind of have a "Draft Format", if I recall there was a product that was designed specifically for that.
The age group thing might work tbh. I have a problem with people saying yugioh needs to become simpler, because that's what keeps most of the existing player base in the game. There's also no proof that its a problem for the game, as its growing regardless. When you think about it it kinda makes sense. The rules aren't on loaded all at the same time, there's been whole formats where the if versus when ruling wasn't relevant in any of the good decks. Given how much money it takes to invest in a deck, most new players stick with one for a while, and get accustomed to their specific rulings over time.
@@romkin1197 If it was better supported then more people would turn up. It's like organising a concert for your band without putting up any posters and complaining when people don't show
@@walkingcorpse1224 we were talking about this at locals today. I mean I know konami needs to make money but what's wrong with let's say putting droplets or accesscode as a common in ots
@@tonykidd6937 as the game keeps losing players, Komoney feels they need those pull rates to keep the super nerds buying boxes. We need a new way to monetize other than milking whales.
@@theone1480 Well said! Konami relies on the whales who buy cases of booster packs rather than regular consumers of Yu-Gi-Oh! Products. Business is business but it would be nice to have a play set of affordable droplets 😂
Honestly, if they put effort into something even remotely close to that, yugioh would become a world wide phenomenon. As in it would be just as major as sports.
This is a joke but you're also right A duel disk + AR specs that responded and showed different things by interacting with said duel disk would be the soonest thing ever They could probably figure out how to wirelessly hook it up to big TV screens and recorders for like world championship matches and stuff too
@@eduardogutierrez3753 ah i thought this was for something else, but either way it did a far better job teaching me mechanics than any of the other games did, and just a bit ago i learned what pendulum summoning was, only reason rulings doesnt go deep is that deck size and boards are small and we only go up to xyz, we dont have pendulum or link yet
As a returning player I've noticed alot of the at shop learning problem is more so a shop hiring problem alot of the people there are cool with there regulars but if a new person walks in they act like douche bags (atleast in my area) and are really condescending
Its will get better with Covid. People wanna interact again. People realize you need others to play this game. More people playing is a good thing and teaching should be the first thing they wanna do. Not only to show off how good their decks are but show the new folk what its all about. Hope staff gets better in stores
I remember going to my first locals tourney. The guy working helped me build a deck with zombie madness structure. Won my first tournament and kept going every weekend. Made a lot of friends then graduated hs and stopped playing. Tried getting back in the game after 10 years. Settled on speed duels and not a lot of people play it, sucks.
"Card shops used to have days to teach new players but not anymore" when i first showed up at my locals (2 years ago when i was 11) i was kinda just expected to sit down and start playing, granted i knew how to play but did i know missing the timing existed? nope! and there were some super nice and patient people in there but when i sat down on my second day some guy accused me of slow playing because i was deciding if i should negate or not and so i didnt show up for another week/week and a half but i got back into it and some people are nice but for each nice person there is gonna be a bad person :/
My school has a yugioh club and before covid we got about 30 people a week who already knew how to play or wanted to know how to play so most of the people at our locals are from the school. Most of the people who try learning also stay.
Saddly that's how it is everywhere for everything. No matter where you'll go you'll find toxic people. Don't focus on them, focus on the nice players and what you enjoy about the game.
I am a new player who happens to be a high school student. I have been playing for 6 months and I can say I am really enjoying this game. I do have problems I have come across. 1. Distance to card shop: As a student I can't drive so I have to rely on buses and bikes. 2. Time card shops host locals: They usually host it around 7pm which causes me problems since parents don't want their kids coming home past 9pm. 3. Learning the game: It took me a month to learn the game, at first I given up but after playing master duel, I understood the current format more.
im 27. played alot back in the dino rabbit/chaos dragon/dark world turbo days. My friend is 29 just starting for the first time and i gotta admit teaching him how to play opened my eyes to how much weve learned over the years to play this game.
Ay nice!, I’m around that age and I taught my friend to this year, who is older then myself, and I think what drew him to the game was the strategy of the game once you get how to play and the mech art cards. I taught him with a duel links/speed duel format since it’s not as complicated at the tcg yet, we used tabletop simulator and edo pro. I taught him the concept of normal summon and special summon first with fur hires, since they are very easy to special summon and the effects aren’t too complicated with the limited card pool of duel links, now he’s playing trains!
Yep, but that's the thing, the age group is 24 - 34, it's rare when u see an 18 year old playing and even rarer when u see a 40+ year old playing which is evident to Yugioh players more and more likely qutting passed 35, or the other possibility, they become the last players around.
I really wish Speed Duels had gotten more player attention and local support. The format is legitimately fun and the battle city box is insane. Speed Duels attempted to solve a lot of the problems you talked about, but it just floundered out of the gate and never found its footing.
I mean, speed duels is great bc it’s how I’m getting my nephew into the game. I also had him download duel links to play when I’m not with him end duel links is how I got back into yugioh this last year after not playing since goat format. I’ve been playing duel links for a couple years before I decided to get into the actual game again. So idk. Speed duels do seem kinda dead in my city though. No one really plays. I think that’s a shame Bc I’d love to take my nephew to a speed duel tournament once covid passes
@@TraaaaaasshBooooaaaatttt Other people definitely like using card that are in the anime, just because Celtic guardian is a non effect monster with shit stats, docent mean people wouldn't LOVE to use Celtic guardian if given the chance they just CANT. To each their own, i will keep on having fun with Lajinn, lord of D and blue eyes in speed duels.
Entirely ironic that most Yu-Gi-Oh players act exactly like the villains in the animes Maybe I don't need the most high powered deck and I'm just here to have fun, king
@@donovanberserk4993 Yeah, the negate everything boards just speak volumes about the player. They really don't want to play. They just want to build the castle, live in it, and move on. They don't want challenges or obstacles.
Tried to teach my brother and he spent pretty much the entire game looking at cards reading effects every time a monster is summoned. Afterward, he still didnt understand. Showed him duel link and he learned it in a few hours. Eventually yugioh will need to go digital to survive.
@@ColdEmperor Legacy of the Duelist for me. I can play with all the older cards, avoid new summoning mechanics all I want and just play with cards that would require me to buy them all second hand since if I wanted to play the real deal I'd have to do just that because there isn't any set around that just has older cards. I just wish I could set the rules so that things like the link and pendulum zones were gone or ban certain mechanics, like revert back to certain master rules or eras so that you could host your own online tournaments with custom rules or something. Letting the computer handle the rulings is much easier for the weird card interactions but even so the biggest problem is the unwritten rules. I'll say it again, unwritten rules should not be a thing, the game would be far more appealing to new players if cards did what they said rather than weird interactions that you'd have to look up online to know are even a thing. Because nothing is going to turn players off like being told that the cards don't actually do what they say because no one is going to want to spend all the time to research dozens of cards that they wanted to build a deck out of just to try and play the damn game to find out if the things even work as written. That would be the biggest improvement to the games approachability and would actually shift up the meta quite a bit as a lot of things would change for the game. Then of course you can tackle the problems such as pricing, card availability, support for older archetypes so they can actually be a thing. Support for things that aren't Dragons/Fiends/Spellcasters, Light/Dark, making everything new a Link/Pendulum card. We all know Ritual summoning is the worst kind of summoning and it's not that it's just not as good as other types of summoning, it's literally just bad. If ritual monsters were kept in the extra deck like how it was in the anime, then that would be an improvement to the game flow by making them less of a dead card. Further I think another turn off to new players was a joke Team APS did in one of their videos where a new player wanted to play Blue-Eyes and the joke was the deck had three Blue-Eyes, they were all in the grave and the field had all kinds of other monsters OTHER than Blue-Eyes. That splashability of cards is nice but you have a serious issue when every deck has Ash Blossoms or are running Needlefiber or Halxifibrax or some other super splashable card that starts combos with everything else in the game. I know it would be all but impossible to make a rule about banning cards in decks if you have too much variety but that's a huge problem that new players are facing is that they don't see a deck be about a certain thing, at best most decks are Half one archetype and the other half if just an engine of everything else to get those cards out sometimes or it's the other way around. Plus you have the issue of these super long combos that make turns take 15 minutes and a game will last 30-45 minutes which sounds kind of reasonable because that's what some anime episodes take to do but then you see that it's just 2-3 turns that's ridiculous. That comes from the game not having a resource requirement to do certain things so you can infinitely special summon so long as you have an effect that lets you do it. Maybe it's a bit controversial but if all effects were hard once per turn unless stated otherwise that would stop a lot of these recycling of cards just to flood your own field with stuff and then if there was a summon limit such as only 1 summon of each type per turn, so 1 Link, 1 pendulum, 1 xyz, 1 synchro, 1 fusion, 1 ritual, 1 normal summon per turn would also stop these engines that make you sit and wait 12 minutes for your opponent to stop playing with themselves. Yeah it's harsh but I can't see any way that kills this complaint about the game that keeps new players from even wanting to touch the cards. Sure some decks would suffer greatly because they would be stopped from summoning a bunch of cards like they normally could. Basically if they put Ritual monsters into the extra deck then it would be an easy rule to implement, Only 1 summon of each type from the extra deck per turn. Then they could errata specific cards that were designed to get out a lot of monsters of a specific archetype rather than Generic summoners, so cards for Harpies would get an errata to get around the ruling so long as they were specifically for summoning other Harpy cards. That would kill a ton of splashable cards that were used outside their archetype but I think that would work to get decks back to actually having themes or archetypes and that would work to help Konami know what needs to be buffed like Volcanics or Noble Knights since they would see that these archetypes need more support to do certain things and that could be solved with releases that give those archetypes more targeted support rather than just a generic card the every deck would run but would finally bring the bottom tier decks into some usage and prevent those cards from being snatched up by every deck under the sun. Which I think would also help the prices since some cards would change prices since you wouldn't want things like Ash Blossom for your deck unless you were running Ghost Girls or something rather than it being a staple 3 in every deck.
Personally, I think one of the main problems with Yu-Gi-Oh is that there's a disconnect between the largest advertisement for the game being the Anime and the players who actually play the game. The anime still treats itself as if the game is a children's card game even though the modern majority of players nowadays are college-age players. The remedy to this is if the Yu-Gi-Oh anime ages alongside their audiences and becomes a Seinen anime instead of a Shounen Battle style one. More fanservice, more in depth stories, more in depth exploration of characters, and going into things you would actually do preparing for an IRL tournament like shopping for singles. It would be awesome of modern day Yu-Gi-Oh anime to talk about the immense costs of the game, to comment on actual game theories like 40 vs 60 cards/missing the timing, having players prepare their cards for a tournament and using different engines together, or even just using one of the things that make the game so dynamic: the side deck. As the anime is right now, its more of a glorified tutorial for new summoning mechanics rather than an advertisement that gets new players into the game. Examples of how an anime can sell a really expensive game are basically all the gacha games out there like the Fate series for the extremely successful Fate/Grand Order.
@@Habeev07 His comment is saying we should shy away from the original anime's style completely and make the anime focus on modern cards, the current format, grounded realistic fiction approach, etc.
This would be so easy to do if they just followed the original anime’s character, but have them 10 years older so that their game progresses like it has in real life
Yeah one year and half ago i started duel links cause I was interested in yugioh but didn't know jack shit even though I made an account 3 years ago before this but quickly quit. After playing around and watching dkayed i managed to learn the rulings and some intricacies but still there aren't a lot of the confusing interactions from the physical card game in the digital but still it is a good stepping stone to start learning. But i think that if you start with duel links there is a high chance you will stay with duel links cause it is cheaper and not everyone has a local card shop or place to play with people.
pay to win, power creep, graveyeard is the second deck, summon und combo chains take 7 minutes, effects are too consistent to search the deck. It feels more like autopilot instead of strategy
So far every card game is pay to win by nature, and ygo is even less p2w than most tcgs Graveyard being important only adds depth and strategy to the gameplay Combo decks atm are more around 4 minutes per turn and they are nothing but autopilot. Having consistant access to cards only makes the game less luck-dependant, as well as adding strategy ( since you'll need to choose what do you want to search ) But yeah apparently modern YGO is autopilot
the game needs some mechanic changes. There should probably be a "all card effects can be used once per turn unless stated otherwise" type rule. They could probably remove missing the timing since that is usually the easiest thing to mess up when new. I still think we need to get rid of archetype mixing, but that is unrelated(even if it would probably fix the balance issues)
Same, even Dragon Ball Super/The New Digimon game takes precedence. I was like one of only three people that’d go regularly and the other guy moved and one works at that time now... 😭
There are like 3 hobby shops on the highway I live on. One is HARD a MTG shop, the other is Warhammer with some MTG, and the one I hang at is primarily Yugioh/Pokemon.
Same, we have 3 games stores in my city, none of them have Yu-Gi-Oh events. I need to travel a hour if I want to go to locals. One store, the biggest one and town and where a lot of big MTG, Pokemon, and Vanguard events are held, has flat-out banned Yu-Gi-Oh after a few big incidents occurred, one involving something gross happening in the bathroom that nobody will talk about. The other two stores sell product, but have no interest in hosting the events because the player base just isn't there. It is a tough prospect when you want to get back into the game.
If Yugioh didn't interest me when I was a kid, I'd probably hate diving in headfirst now as a new player. There's thousands of cards that are legal to play, most are trash by modern standards but the pool size is still pretty overwhelming. The nuances in ruling also seems like a nightmare, even just for specific single cards sometimes.
As much as there's a problem with gaining new players the game for years has had a problem with losing old ones. I use to love to play YGO all the time but dropped it like a rock the second pendulums were introduced. If they had made various formats for players to play in I think the longevity of the game would have been extended greatly. For a player like me I want to play something between GOAT format and modern in the synchro or xyz era because the game really feels so different depending on when you were playing but players like me are left in the cold with no format they like being played anymore
Konami should introduce other formats in a semi-competitive way, like do formats that encourage people to play the original YuGiOh from 2002-2006ish then go on to the GX era of play and so on. I feel like if the game had this it would be a good way to get new players and returning players into the TCG. If they did tournaments or something like that it'd be cool, but I think it would also be hard if people didn't have access to the cards from that period of time. It'd be neat to see anyway
Elitism in complex games is sadly a common thing. YGO isn't the only game that has that problem. It's all over the place in video game communities too. People want to feel important for spending a lot of time learning a hard game and putting down new players seems to be one part of achieving that, if they lack other means of seeing success. It's pretty sad.
I recently came back to yugioh this year after like 15 years. Playing magic for the last 7 years and yugioh is way more complex than magic nowadays because of so many corner case bullshit not written on cards
thats what I tried talking about with the MTG group on discord. I don't play yugioh but I keep up with new sets, and watch out for highlights, deck builds, etc. I tried to explain how complex Yugioh is now. They didn't believe me, they still stand on MGT being the most complex and deep game. They thought just cause you can play cards outside game doesn't make it complicated. When I started expanding on link zones, pendelums, syncro and fussion diff. They were to stubborn to refute it.
I remember when I got my play group to start playing MTG and it's just so different teaching how to play. Like one of the old things with MTG is, do exactly as the card says then go from there. Like the rules are so intuitive and easy to grasp. Then as you play you progressively come across weird and complex interactions, but it's not like the core of the gameplay mechanics like in Yugioh. Like MTG is even built that you can't miss timing, and if you could it's completely understood why it works that way. Yugioh seriously needs some rules revisions because it is definitely way to complex in its current state.
Explain to kids about missing the timing, chains, Pendulum summoning, how 90% of archetypes die to one Ultimate Conductor Tyranno, etc. Plus, the price tag for a decent deck might be too high for kids. Ask a kid to purchase 3 Ash, 3 Extravagance, 3 Nibiru, etc. Usually kids I know (I work at a middle school) just buy one structure deck and call it a day.
Everyone starts somewhere tbh. I was 10 when I received my first structure deck. I kept most of the cards in moderately played condition, but I stuck around long enough with the help of my dad and friends tbh. I think finding people to play with is something that depends on the individual
Cardfight vanguard (created by one of the yugioh artists 10 years ago) now has 3 formats and they are constantly trying to get new players in. The new reboot Cardfight vanguard: Overdress is coming and people should try it out.
I've played around a bit with something I call 'single style' format - a format with 5 subformats. For each of the five main special mechanics - Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, and Link - both players can only use one, and you cannot do the other four. This would simplify the game greatly, since there wouldn't be so many actions you could take.
This is what I believe Rush Duels were made to solve: -Aimed at younger kids -The rules are simpler -Card interactions are simplified and more obvious. -Provides an alternate format for players Despite it working on solving every problem addressed in the vid, people have been giving it a really bad name, I hope this dies down by the time it gets an international release.
But do you think people in the Yu-Gi-Oh community are willing to make a concerted effort promoting Rush Duels? Do you believe that influencers like TeamSamuraiX or Cimo are fine making a lot of content based on Rush Duels and educating people about it?
Yeah, I've played Yugioh tcg casually with friends and online mixed causal and competitive for nearly 5 years as well as watching all the animes. I love Rush duels so much, and I know they're meant to be for young people to learn. I really hate this community for shitting on Sevens and Rush duels, a format and show not aimed at them, for no good reason and therefore pushing people away. Same for speed duels
I agree, yugioh does have a new player problem. The game is advertised for 6+ year olds. Last I checked, I don’t know that many (if any) “kids” that actually play. I really don’t see 6 year olds grasping how to play the game with all the rulings that the rule book doesn’t even touch. That and card text is kind of an issue with that as well.
Even back in the day, before XYZs and stuff, when I played more "seriously" it was an issue. Like, there was this kid with a ridiculous deck, since his dad bought him everything, but he didn't know how to pilot the deck and wouldn't listen to advice.
As a casual player (meaning not really into big/long combos), those decks that get like 3+ "boss" monsters just about every turn makes the game unenjoyable. Granted, it's probably due to the fact I like slower/more traditional duels. Don't get it twisted tho, i like links, xyz, etc... its just how popular OTKs. It's as if you stand no chance if you don't build a deck like that
I'm a brand new Yugioh player (coming from Master Duel which appealed to me) and I think what helped me was how generous Master Duel was with gems. I'd started with the dragon deck they give you and inevitably I'd get destroyed almost right away. I started noticing certain cards being used ALL the time like Ash Blossom Joyous Spring & "Maxx C" so I started generating those cards for my deck, rinse and repeat. Now I use a Dark Magician deck with some of those cards and other supporting cards after a few RU-vid videos helped me out. I do feel like I "powered through" or "got good" but at the same time it feels like I'm becoming what they call a "meta sheep"? despite having not played for more than a few days. Master Duel lets me copy some meta cards without the high IRL cost of the physical card since it's just 30 UR points. I do feel like I got lucky by being stingy with my free gems until I had an idea of what cards I wanted eventually building a blue eye deck and a dark magician cards using cards as new as the 'chaos' boosters which just dropped.
props to you for going after old school theme, can respect that. I myself go for gimic decks and they're fun while absolutely unbalanced in loosing way. Its a lot more fun playing with a friend rather then randoms. You should try it.
I can say as a teenager who loves this game i do not feel comfortable going to a locals can't afford to put the money into building competitive deck to be able to feel like im welcome and can play without being destroyed Thank you to everyone who has given me ideas for cheap meta decks ive taken it on its nice to see people like you in this community after being turned down so often for my age
I dont know why its hard for you to build a competitive deck. I mean I guess as a teenager its a little harder but you can build a competent deck for about $1-200. It may not be the deck that you want, want but there are many budget options dude.
Jarom it’s really expensive to get decks going. Many important cards are $60+ and a lot of people don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on a single deck
@@jarom1144 you have to remember not every teen can just rack up 200 dollars and most teens don't have allowance which is another factor and most budget decks people preach of get clapped if they don't buy expensive 20+ cards and most of the time the teen will have to get these cards in person ( not saying some don't have access to tcgplayer or anything of the sort) and when they do vendors may not have the cards they're looking for since they'll mainly have the expensive cards that adults will want to buy and to a adult who plays competitive 9-50+ for a singular card may not seem like much but to a teen on a budget thats a good amount of their budget there's also the problem of parents not wanting to support their kids playing competitive for they see it as "useless" or other ways now taking in all these things into account I hope you understand why a teen building a 200 dollar deck may be hard for them but I will admit if they want to build a meta deck this is the format to do so since this format has some pretty decent prices for meta decks
@@King_Cova nah, they're a really easier way to understand the game and people just hate it because It's not what they play, because people like to just insult things.
I tried to get into Yu-Gi-Oh irl and went to a card shop twice, the second time was what made me quit again. I had to play against a dude and I was playing pendulums (bought 1 entire box and tried to create the best with what I had). I didn't have the greatest of hands and didn't really have any clear play, combined with the fact that Pendulums aren't the easiest new player deck, it took me a while to figure out what my play for the turn was gonna be. This dude complained that I was taking too long in my turn, even though I was only 1 minute into it at most. He then proceeded to whip out a ds to play emulated fighting games on it. I have never felt so uninvited in my life.
yeah, I quit Pokemon TCG when Yugioh players migrated to it. I got accused of cheating and they wanted a count of cards and explain what I did on previous turns. I was not having none of that.
konami should make small Anime-like tutorial videos of Joey learning all the in-depth mechanics as he makes the most common player mistakes and someone stepping in to clarify, this way players can have a relatable and fun way to learn the differences.
I'm a returning player and the way I been learning the new rules of the game (since it's been over a decade since I've played) had been watching videos on the rules and then putting it into practice in YGO Omega. They're still working out the kinks on the software but it's personally been a fun and useful way to learn.
@@chriscm2711 oh lol when I got back into yugioh like 5 years ago I went back to the cards that got me into yugioh, which were harpies. Now I play harpies, and toons. I want to bubble cubics next. But idk I like playing not meta decks but cubics are just way under powered lol
I think we will all come together as a community and Yugioh will be better. Im coming back and if money is an issue, players can just buy 3 of the newer structure decks and make a strong deck. Im new coming back for the first time in 14 years. I bought 3 Order of the spellcasters decks and will make the Cimoooooo budget Endymion pendulum deck
This is why I think it's great that Konami came up with Rush Duels. Way easier to get into the card game (since no other summoning methods than tribute) and YGO Sevens' characters are kids (with very few exceptions). Older fans/player might find it stupid but this is what we needed for the younger generation imo.
@@mikai4738 A lot of older fans hate Rush Duels and Sevens, but they have to understand that they are not the target demographic for Rush. Master Duels are doing just fine without an anime, but the anime needs to bring kids to the game, so I think Rush Duels and Sevens are a great way to make the game easier so kids can get into it, and if they want to play a different way they can start with Speed Duels, and then they can "graduate" to Master Duels.
Dude I've been saying yugioh needs different formats to make it more interesting and fun to play and keep old decks in rotation so returning players aren't scared away by power creep and new summoning types
@@Anonym-mh7sz Set rotation isn't a bad thing though. I don't need to worry about how a card printed ten years ago interacts with something that just came out while playing MTG if I stick to the modern format. Or I could try and figure it all out by playing a format that allows all those cards like commander. Yu-gi-oh has been around long enough that Konami could very easily implement something similar.
@@jonathandorton3337 Ban lists are infinitely better, set rotations will just murder any deck you play and most locals don't have expanded formats. I played Pokemon and IM SO GLAD I LEFT. The deck I was playing would be fully rotated. Thank God for banlists. Why would I want to buy a new deck each rotation cause I can't spend 1 minute to understand how some interaction works.
@@jonathandorton3337 I'd rather spend money on a card once and keep playing a deck for years than spending money on new decks just to be able to even sit down to play
My idea is starter deck days or structure deck days, basically you only play with structure decks or starter decks, ask if they ever played Yu-Gi-Oh or at least saw the anime, and have volunteers duel with structure decks or starter decks against the new players and describe what they are doing each time in a free dueling day for at least 3 duels per new player and veteran and have a tournament after every player dueled at least 3 times and won at least one game, but have the veterans in a separate bracket until the final bracket where the top new player duels the top veteran with the structure decks they bought to enter the tournament, participants each get a common or rare card booster pack with no short prints and have them every month, but Konami needs to print a structure deck or a starter deck every month to do that and print low value staples for the months structure decks in a run along booster set, so it might be a bad idea,
Cool idea. Im coming back to the game after playing from 2002-2005. Im gonna build a deck that is more expensive and has the FLAVOR I like. But im also wanting to just see what the newest stuff is all about. I literally bought 3 Order of the Spellcasters structure decks and gonna build the Cimooooooooo on YT 3x ENYMION PENDULUM structure deck. I will be so lost keeping track of spellcounters but it seems fun and kinda meta enough to not lose every game. I hope. But if I do... Oh well. It about having fun playing cards you relate to. HEART of the cards.
I started last year and at first I thought," how on earth can you remember your cards and summon 5 times in 1 turn." But only Bout 1 week later i found it extremely easy it may seem tough but if you try hard enough it isn't as hard as it seems.
Yea im 31 and coming back to the game after 2002-2005 era. I found that learning wont be as hard as I thought. once you got your material on the field or hand you start to remember which ones help you bring out certain monsters in your extra deck and form combo memories. Now understanding what the OPP does will be a learning experience everytime XD. It takes time but eventually ill understand the deck im building to get back into the game. Its kind of a bit of old and new. Its a Horus Black Flame Dragon Lvl 8/Hieratic's deck... Splashing Claw of Hermos/Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword, Ultimaya Tzolkin/Crystal Wing/Star Eater/ Beelze/Queen Dragun/King Atum, etc... Its not meant to be competitive but it has all the old school and new school dragon FLAVOR I love
it's overwhelming at first but it's not as complicated as it looks, there's a lot of stuff but it's not as complicated as it looks besides a dozen of uncommon rulings
Am 12 I started playing at like 7 lol I just think the wording on through cards are annoying AF and they should be more simple I kinda wait the game now and also its expensive my dad yes prob spent over 500 dollars on this game i even know what I was buying for like 3yrs lol good game tho
To me Yugioh was at it's best back in 2005-2008. That was how the game was supposed to be played. Normal monsters, effect monsters, ritual monsters, fusion monsters, spells, traps, normal summons, and special summons, which were usually only performed by using spells, or trap cards. Only a few monster cards at the time allowed players to search their deck's to special summon certain monsters, and only a few monsters had special summoning requirements. Once the 5'ds era came along, it started becoming bloated, and the game drastically changed. It was still good in my opinion until the Pendulum, and XYZ cards came along. I was somewhat fine with Synchro monsters. The game was still really complex back in 2005-2008, but it wasn't all about monster effects, summoning requirements, and elaborate combos. The power creep wasn't so out of control like it is now. Also the most iconic cards of the anime/manga were still relevant, and viable. I used to go whole duels without performing a special summon back then. I played a few duels back in the day that lasted over 50 turns, where both me and my opponent could not get through each-others defenses. Those were the most fun matches for me personally. I even played a few duels back in the day where I won because my opponent ran out of cards before I did. I remember the draw phase was a crucial part of the game as well because back then decks did not play themselves. The game was about knowing when to hold certain monsters, spells, or traps in your hand, or risk putting them on the field, because you had to think about the possibility of not drawing a card you needed during your next draw phase, or the possibility of your opponent destroying your monsters, spell, or trap cards. You also had to worry about if your opponent liked to play using morphing jar, cyber jar, or morphing jar#2, which could disrupt your strategies. The game was just so much better back when it was in it's prime.
Tried to teach a friend through playing decks from past to present. He lost intrest at Syncros and archetypes as cardtext gor out of hand and combos started to emerge where he had to read through 40 long text cards just to get a basic idea what the deck is about. We used to play magic back in the day so we are both used to reading but cards but the lack of keywords really makes getting into archetype decks a chore. Nobodys got time for that.
My locals doesn't even *have* a dedicated day for YuGiOh. I think maybe we used to have a tournament a week, but the turnout was always pretty small (I wasn't ever able to go because of work). Compared to MTG, Pokemon, and Vanguard, YuGiOh was an ant of a game there. This lack of new players is rooted in a lot of things. Modern competitive YuGiOh is a game about rule-setting, it's about permission. Control Decks and Combo decks both focus on gameplay about denying and permitting your opponent to activate their cards. The brutal and binary nature of the game is extremely feelsbad for new players, and people quit the game for new and old ones that actually have interaction. Konami panders specifically towards old players. Without a new show in TCG regions, we've been getting retrains and such, support for older archetypes that tickle the nostalgia of the 25 - 30 year olds who watched the original show. I'm fairly enfranchised and I hate how much stuff we get that's just pandering to old players. I'll complain about it forever. YuGiOh's competition are not only more heavily advertised, but they're just better designed games. YuGiOh isn't a very good game when compared to other ones that offer more of everything various players want, even a new game like Legends of Runeterra has infinitely more depth of gameplay over YuGiOh. A new format or two would be great, but the fundamentals of the game would need to be adjusted in the rules of those new formats, aside from card availability. Lack of accessibility, a gatekeepy player base, gameplay that isn't *consistently fun* for both players, etc. YuGiOh's built these huge walls to keep new players out, it seems. Lot's to talk about.
This is all very true. And these issues are becoming more and more concentrated. Yugioh players are extremely allergic to the idea of card rotation, but the card pool is simply too large to keep power creep at bay.
I wish they would find a way to structure rulings like in a similar way to problemsolving cardtexts. Like grouping effect-"classes" together and then allow for a completd ruling for that effect "class". Also, i know this will sound like sacrilege, but i think they should remove the if-when distinktuon. Missing timing is such a stupid and complicated mechanic, i bet even thise who say they understand it don't really understand it
Problems: 1) Chain blocking should not exist 2) Missing timing should not exist 3) Everything should start a chain 4) Non-printed interactions on cards should not exist Then YuGiOh will be the perfect game
100% agree on the "missing timing" thing. Like that always felt like a "glitch" to me. This is a gosh darn, physical card game. It shouldn't have "glitches".
I wish ygo in the TCG would be like in the OCG where they get multiple rarities of a card right from the get go and you can decide whether you want to spend a lot for a shiny version or just play a common.
@Soniku Raharu yeah they do. People in the OCG would never accept their policy like we have it in the TCG. People there would boycott the game, same like they now boycott ps5 because ps5 controllers there do now have the same buttons as in the west and they were used to their own button layout. Meanwhile people in the TCG areas seem to be way more resilient to bad behaviour and cash grab of companies which is the reason why konami uses the TCG as a cash cow and shortprints cards that have proven to be important in the meta. Theres no reason for them to change it like in the OCG, because the TCG is dumb enough to pay those prices. Why would they change a good working strategy? Yugioh in the OCG is one of the best card games existing. There they care for the players and they give everyone the opportunity to be able to build a cheap meta deck (commons possible). You even have to take a look at their OCG website, its new and fresh. Meanwhile the official TCG website looks like out of the year 2003. I might want to add that the card quality is way higher in the OCG then the TCG. Have you ever had an original OCG card in your hands? It feels way better, semms like they print it on a thicker material there. I mean i do get that the OCG is their main area but why cant you give us that quality of a game aswell? Yugioh would compete way better with common card games here (like magic or pokemon), because most of the negative sites of yugioh just arent true for the OCG.
The friendships I make are what inspires me to keep going 0-5 every week at locals because topping every week doesn’t matter as long as I have a good time
We’re on the same boat. I lose so many times but I genuinely don’t care. I have a good time and at least I’m not looking at a TV screen not interacting with anyone in the physical, real world
In the same boat as well the only issue I have is when you run into that really competitive player who gets mad and takes the game serious when you don’t shuffle a certain way. Especially since remote duels are kinda the standard amidst covid and they expect you to try and keep your hand revealed on screen at all times. Only those types of people I HATE at locals
I'm not gonna lie to you. Half the friends I have, as a 22 year old at the moment, are thanks to Yugioh. I used to have more as a younger kid, but times change, people change. And they're the closest friends I've made. Even now, I even got to know a person that worked in a neighboring store, because we both played yugioh. We might not play together, but we can talk about how fricking lucky he was to get his third damn Nibiru. I was a kid collecting since I was four years old. Around 13, my parents made me throw out all the cards I had collected up to that point as punishment, cause I guess having a single D in middle school with mostly As and Bs, as a child with ADHD, was unacceptable. What hurt, wasn't losing all the cards. It was the fact that I lost the things that started off almost all the friendships I've ever made up to that point.
I think we will all come together as a community and Yugioh will be better. Im coming back and if money is an issue, players can just buy 3 of the newer structure decks and make a strong deck. Im new coming back for the first time in 14 years. I bought 3 Order of the spellcasters decks and will make the Cimoooooo budget Endymion pendulum deck
@@yoshistover5881 Woah, are we the same person!? Your story is basically the same as mine...except I turn 22 this year. One of the only cards I have left from my old collection happens to be one of the very first 9 cards I ever got my hands on (I got a booster pack). It's Warrior Dai Grepher from Legacy of Darkness. I keep it in the last Majestic Star Dragon sleeve I had before everything was lost/given away because it reminded me of the first tin I ever got (which was the Majestic Star Dragon tin...obviously.😅) I'm always going to keep him in that sleeve in my binder because it shows my humble beginnings, yet also shows how far I've come and all of those friends I made along the way that are my closest friends today.
Unfortunatley they can't, because it would become an advertisement and violate some laws surrounding that. At least in the U.S. That is why in the U.S. version of the yugioh anime, we don't actually have text boxes on the cards that appear.
@@Sheikah_Architect That is Bandai Namco's work around when they have the Gundam Build Fighters anime which is an anime that shows building techniques and Toy products, they put the anime series on RU-vid but put the more serious Gundam shows like Iron Blood Orphan on Networks
Vrains did head in a similar direction. They covered at least the more common questions, like Links dont have level or can't turned to defense, when get they get bounced to the hand they return to the extra deck etc... It didn't really covered complex rulings but it was WAAAAY closer to the actual card game then anything we saw with Yugioh classic or GX. Less anime exclusive cards, actual strategy, MR4 was basically the anime format with gouki, trickstar, altergeist, salamangreat, rokket(aka dragon link)... they all saw competitive play. And I hope that they continued that in sevens and what ever comes after that.
Hey, not a new player but a returning one (or at least I tried to). I stopped playing a bit after Synchros came out (so like in 2008-09) just cause I wasn't feeling so passionate about the game at the time. Somewhere around 2019 I saw some of the new cards and the art looked pretty cool and then got into a lot of yt videos and I just felt the urge to play som yu-gi-oh again. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money buying packs and cards just see if I would like the game again so I just downloaded ygopro and looked for the top meta decks and started to watch some videos explaining the decks etc. I just took whichever looked the coolest and started to play against AI to understand the deck. But holy shit I just couldn't. It was just too complicated, the cards have too much text, I couldn't effectively read all the text and understand everything and still play somewhat efficiently. Keep in mind ygopro even asks you if you want to activate certain cards and their effects, if I had to know all this as well then I would literally just miss like 3/4s of the effects and activations. I think the barrier of entry is just too high, like knowing how your deck works and what it's supposed to do is already complicated enough for a new player but learning like all the proper activation and different timings on card just seems like an absolute nightmare. There's also the unwritten and specific rulings about certain cards as you said which is honestly just borderline impossible for a new player without like irl guidance to really learn. I can guarantee you that even on a match between 2 experienced players they can easily miss timings and not even know about jank super specific rulings some cards might have. I do believe Konami just makes huge text walls for the sake of making the game more complicated. I know card games are bound to get more complex as time goes on, it's inevitable. People would just get bored of playing vanilla yu-gi-oh eventually but there are just so many mechanics that I really think that unless you have a friend that will take their time teaching you everything then it's almost impossible to get into this game, it just feels like a chore and a torture to try to understand everything by yourself (with like videos and guides I mean).
I was with you. I could memorize a few 'lines' with a deck or a few things few targets I need to "hand trap". But the game is just insane. I don't think you could do it unless you watched these lines develop. I could buy a structure deck and I wouldn't even know what to do with the cards.
They missed so many key word opportunities; piercing=damage to def monsters. Double attack= this monster can attack 2 time per battle phase. Double monster attack=attack up to 2 monsters your opponent controls. Encore=when this monster destroys a monster by battle, It can attack again in a row. and many others
Tbh I don’t really get the point of keywords. They save space on a card obviously, but games like magic have so many that I would actually rather have the text on the card. Plus, there are some cards that use those mechanics but have rules or exceptions, like the sky striker equip and attacking twice but only for monsters.
This video hit the nail on the head for me. I thought about dipping back in after about 16 years, a nice hobby during quarantine. It's not that I'm mad at new mechanics or something like that, but it is quite dense. And this is coming from someone who's an adult, can you imagine a kid learning this for the first time?
I know I’m hella late, but kids actually learn this pretty easily because they’re like sponges when it comes to new things. I know this is anecdotal, but I taught my 7 year old niece how to play Yugioh recently and I taught her the mechanic and after a few hours she understood how to play. The only difficult part was explaining what certain words mean or how to pronounce them. I think as adults we try to figure out the why things do what they do making it more complicated for ourselves. This game isn’t easy to learn, I just think kids learn how to play just easier if that makes sense.
I think location is one thing. If a card shop isn’t close newer players specifically younger ones won’t know about it or have access to it. Parents won’t want to drive them far as well as time for tournaments and such. Also it’s an issue when some stores don’t play yugioh. Like the closest card shop I had near me at one time played magic, and Pokémon of course , but dbz instead of yugioh. If there’s only one card shop in the area that plays yugioh and it’s distant or not in an area many kids would notice they might not go to it
I think they need to make all the cards more accessible like in OCG, hell, even Pokémon does this too. Have a card available in all rarities so people can pick up whatever rarity they can afford. It’s not like they’d see a decline in sales as higher rarity cards are still gonna have the same pull ratio & you’ll have people still chasing those. I guarantee you’d have people/newer/returning players buying more packs if you could pull common Lightning Storms, Zeus, Eldlich etc.
That might give Konami the idea to do sort of what wizards is doing atm. Print special edition packs that cost more and only have foiling and specific cards. which will cause them to push it more as a collectors item than a playing item. Wizards is getting kind of greedy lately and Konami could easily do the same thing if they care more about the bottom line that player satisfaction.
I would say being a returning player after a long time that some things I would fix: -Paragraph long effects: when I have to read a book in order to fully understand the card, that is a problem -link summoning/extra deck: get rid of it, or let only 5 cards in the extra deck to simplify the game -rules that are official on their website and easily accessible I feel that the problem with yugioh is that it is way too complicated, when looking at Pokemon TCG it isn't very complicated and the cards in Pokemon don't have paragraph long effects/ 2-3 other effects of the card in certain conditions. when you overly complicate a game it isn't fun anymore.
did anyone of you tried to explain pendulums to a 7 year old? the kid told me i'm nuts and the game is crazy and went back to play cod on pc, i'm very happy to see our yugi tubers do videos when they're 50 years old bcs no one else will
To be fair, I have been playing Yugioh since the start, and honestly the new stuff is way too confusing. not a big fan of how short duels are nowadays compared to now where everyone has multiple combos to summon monsters, it's like this does this then this I can summon this which allows me to do this then thanks to that I can summon this to summon this and this does this and I am lost because it's hard to keep up. Idk maybe it's because I enjoy the old style before we got xyz, pendulums, link monsters and all that.
THIS!!! I used to play a lot back then, but xyz and pendulums entered and I was OUT. I don't want to play a game where I lose on turn 1. Sorry, not sorry.
@@Vizorbot now days the match boil down to summoning monsters with Omni negate( red eye dragoon, cyber dragon infinity) or just drawing all your cards in 1 turn and preventing your opponent from doing anything during his turn. If your deck cannot at least draw 2 or 3 cards in each of your turns then you loose, it also absolutely needs to have recovery. Am just man... this is why Pokémon just obliterate yugioh when it comes to player vs player
Have you forgotten the many synchro spam decks? I still remember my opponent stealing my monsters then filling a board with synchro monsters and one punch me. You are the remembering the casual scene with friends. The competitive scene hasn't changed much. With friends I could set 1 and pass and not die the next turn, when the competitive people showed up at my locals they otk me turn 2. My deckbuilding had to improve to keep up while a lot of friends just stopped playing because they couldn't keep up.
@@omega5040 exactly, in Pokémon it’s extremely difficult guaranteed to clearly win in just 2 turns you need to snipe Pokémon that pose a treat to your team, in yugioh if you opponent is even slightly competent in competitive duels, then the duel becomes all or nothing in 1 turn
@@deepsoul8034 Pokemon has draw 4 cards you can use every turn. That said energy cards limit how much you can go off in a turn. You think yugioh needs a restrictive mechanic?
I've played Yugioh, Pokemon, and Magic the Gathering and this issue goes across all TCGs that it's hard for new players to jump in and be competitive with other players. I've seen game stores completely close because people stopped showing up to play because the same top tier players would always win get all the prizes and everyone else would question why am i spending money, time, effort in this hobby just to show up to a event lose and get nothing for my trouble and not enjoy myself. Then end up leaving the hobby all together.
Thats exactly my main reason i quit tcg (pokemon and vanguard). Imagine for ths first time in 3 years you finally win and got 1st place .......... on local shop weekly turney
The way I ended up learning the game way back when was through the video games. The various GBA games a la Eternal Duelist Soul, Tag Force 1-6 + Special, the 5Ds & Millennium Duels XBLA games, etc.
You know, I'd say the main barrier against new players is simply how expensive it is to get into the TCG competitively. I noped out of that super quickly because I don't have hundreds just lying around. I especially didn't have that when I was younger because it literally takes a job to be able to afford a good, up-to-date deck. And that's really the main reason why Master Duel changed everything. It's f2p-friendly, and that's a great step.