Man I wish it was only that, or at least a little simpler, instead of playing half their deck, drawing 5 hands, banishing my hand, deck, and Extra Deck, before I even draw a card, and then ending up with a full board, and none of my zones are unlocked!
Lol. I wanted to make a comment where I do a bunch of shit in your main before my first turn but u did so little there's nothing I could do. No bystial, no pay frame, can't imperm into multi faker, tear havnis, or rescue ace.
Farfa said it best. Literally make a legacy era structure deck for dm and blue eyes that is competent and upgradable enough that it can eventually compete as a rogue deck.
@@Guythatlivesaquietlife same for the god cards. These stainless steel ones with manga art could’ve easily been actual manga art reprints or new support that made them consistent in a set. Instead they suck off the original series but never make it playable so all the normies that wanna play it leave the game
I think the problem is actually the game itself. It's exceptionally daunting to be expected to remember a chain of combos in a game, that gets you to the board state you're after.. and ALSO have to learn your possible meta opponents combos that try to get them to their preferred board state. These decks are more likely geared at the school yard players, where things are more relaxed because kids generally don't have several hundred dollars to drop on a meta deck. Instead it's whatever precons and goodies they can get from packs, and as they get older they may get more involved and interested and start being able to pour more money into the game. I don't think you're really going to be able to make a modern Yu-Gi-Oh product to pull in people that aren't already familiar with the game digitally, or familiar with other complex card game systems with lots of rules and interactions of its own with a large financial barrier to entry of its own.
one of the biggest issue is not money but power level. yugioh starts at vintage so theres no non broken format for players who want to engage with the game as a whole.
The thing is if you’re never going to get into meta you never have to do that. Sure a casual probably isn’t going to find the optimal line from activating branded fusion if it’s in a starter deck, but they can still manage to use it to summon a big fusion monster for fun no problem. A deck with both casual recognition but also the ability to build into a good deck if they do decide they want to play at locals kinda solves that.
@@ducky36F yeah but literally every locals ive ever been at has been people playing competitively. i hate this myth that people put up of "the locals meta isnt meta" get out of here, yeah people play non meta, but in 20 people 6-7 were playing kash when kash was big, 10 were playing tear when tear was big, 6-7 were playing lab when lab was big. The others were just playing near meta contenders, i.e. branded, or mannadium, dlink piles etc. Im kind of sick of this "well dont worry locals isnt competitive" in a game that has literally only one way to play set up for it. Competitive. The only other route is edison for most players, and it really feels cruddy to play a 13 year old format where everything is weirdly tuned pile decks
Yugioh was never meant to be a card game in the first place. The card game was add because the fans request it. So the company that makes yugioh cards never got the time to test them.
School yard yugioh hasn't existed in a long time. Prices for packs have gone up with inflation, general stores aren't carrying them as often. I work at Walmart and before I saw A pack of yugioh cards laying in back, it had legit been 3 or 4 years since I saw one in a non-game store.
Honestly more than anything I find the issue is that the decklists for the individual starter/structure deck are completely unplayable, you pretty much have to get 3 to even get anything functional. I used to think that was fine or normal, but a few years ago I started playing weiss schwarz as well and in that game the "trial decks" as they call them, while absolutely much lower power than any competitive deck, they are actually perfectly playable out of the box and gives human ratios, not the ratios of an anime character. That's what yugioh needs imo. Cause like if you're not "in the loop" to know you need 3 structure decks to make a playable deck, the marketing leads you believe 1 is enough when it couldn't be further from the truth. I've had a lot of my brother's friends come to me because they know that I'm the "yugioh guy" to teach them yugioh, and they usually have a single structure deck already bought, and the hardest thing for me to do is to tell them "Man, I'm really sorry I have to tell you this, but this by itself is completely unplayable and you can't even be blamed for thinking otherwise". I think that's also the concern people have from these latest reveals, that the 2-player starter set will have decks that are completely unplayable outside of the scripted duel, which in a way gives new players even worse false representation because the scripted duel will make it seem as if they are functional decks. Tldr: For me the simplest thing they can do to make things easier for new players is make starter/structure decks contain an actual playable deck with 3 offs. The power level can stay low to make things easy, but at least give them something that works out of the box.
As a player who went into the "fire king structure deck event", I can 100% agree with you on this. I have never been this frustrated while playing YGO(asides from facing runick stun), I literally bricked for 5 turns with no plays at all in a row. These modern starter/structure decks are absolute garbage when you only have one. The moment you get 3 of these, the deck is somewhat playable. The only structure decks of 3 that are good: Beware of traptrix, I seen Pak and other players finding success with it. Although, traptrix is a rogue deck.
This is why the Pokémon TCG has only improved its decks over the past years: Stage 1 decks may only have one Pokémon-ex card, but they give you all the support that card needs to make the deck playable (multiple copies of evolution cards, draw power cards, search cards, etc) to introduce players on how to actually play the game. Stage 2 decks actually have two copies of the featured Pokémon-ex card, meaning you have plenty more chance of accessing it, and they can even build up on the strategy of the Stage 1 deck of the same type (Quaquavel ex is an upgraded Chien Pao ex deck with an added Radiant Greninja) And the Stage 3 deck (Miraidon ex & Regieleki V-Max) gives you a fast and powerful deck that's easy to use and doesn't hinder you by only giving you one copy of each necessary card - it even outright tells you in its guide "replace certain cards with third copies of Miraidon ex, Regieleki V and V-Max to have easy access to them, and add in some copies of Iono to disrupt your opponent's hand." Konami just giving you just one copy per card in a deck is frankly insulting and a blatant excuse for you to buy three copies of each deck, but that's why everyone calls them Komoney - you want to make your deck even slightly functional, you need to buy more from them.
So I agree with you that to get playable product into players hands a deck needs 3 ofs. But if the goal of the product is to expose players to more unique ideas and interactions then having mostly 1 ofs makes sense. With 3 ofs you end up around 14 unique cards in the main deck but with 1 ofs that increases all the way to 40. This gives the player much more exposure to different cards and how they interact with one another. While also providing much more room for the player to make determinations based on their experience about the cards they ultimately choose to include in their deck once they take the step to purchase 2 more copies of the deck. More unique cards in a product also means more unique art. It’s easy to underestimate how important a factor “it looks cool/pretty” can be for convincing someone to stick with the game. Given the way the game currently works its not realistic to hope that the new player organically learns the game in this fashion and is informed enough to make meaningful decisions regarding their completed build. But that is the generous interpretation of the intent behind filling a starter deck with 1 ofs.
@@moncala7787 it doesn't have to be all 3 offs, in other tcgs they don't put everything in max copies either, but they give you ratios that make the whole thing playable. That might mean some 3 offs, some 2 offs, some 1 offs, doesn't have to be perfect but the way it is right now is heavily misleading. Another comment mentioned that it's an excuse to pay more but that's not even what I care about, literally make the sd cost the same as buying 3 if you really want to, but make it work by itself. In weiss schwarz the trial deck costs 20 euros, double as much as a yugioh starter or structure deck, but I don't mind at all because I get one and have a playable deck immediately. Once you're in the loop to know that you need 3 it's cool to see reprints and more weird extra cards and what not like you said, but I've way too often seen these products fundementally fail at their alleged purpose of being easy entry points by virtue of new players understandably assuming 1 copy is all you need, and then me or someone else has to explain the truth to them and while some might just say they understand and continue, I find that a lot find it demoralizing and never play again.
I think a good idea to make the starter decks work, is if starter deck were made for a new format similar to old yugioh, with it's own rules, and more lenient on normal monsters and a new type of card in the extra deck that only works in that format, maybe like a red border card since we got no red border cards(slifer doesn't count) that are sort of like fusions with link rules that, no arrows, the monsters let's call them elite monsters(cause why not) still have def, but to summon em they require a certain amount of normal monsters, and sometimes specific types of monsters, so we could actually play sparkman if we want, and it would still be good, with a new format that is different enough to the main one, a quicker and older style format.
Best traps for lab right now are dogmatika punishment, dimension barrier (side deck), eradicator, ice dragon prison and daruma cannon (it destroys unaffected cards)
@@Wenzan3pm I need to correct you since there's many monster/card with "destruction" protection. Daruma cannon actually forces the player that send it to the graveyard(evenly match 2.0). So stuff like mirror jade, fire king and unchainned won't get to benefit from it. you know what's more neat about the card? Link monsters cannot be put in face-down defense position since they go no defence. This card is basically is a giant kaijuu that wipes out all Link monster on the field and send it to the graveyard
I really liked your idea about DM Branded and Bystial BEWD but think that sooner or later, Konami is going to have to come to terms that the original anime is 20+ years old and they would win over a lot of newcomers by showing a few things that we as regular players take for granted. For example, I thought about including a small manga (maybe 20 pages) inside every deckbox showing a bit of the archetype's story. Some can be silly like Nouvelles having a wacky day at the Restaurant, others can be more ""serious"" like Branded. On the other side of the playmat where they show you combos, they could include an area of "Watch out for these interruptions!", as in, "If your opponent activates Infinite Impermanence, you can tribute your card and it won't be able to target it! If they use Ash Blossom, you might instead need to activate such and such instead!". It would also help if we got certain things here in the West like the Sky Strikers manga and Rush Duels. At least SOMETHING that isn't just "Remember Duelist Kingdom?"
I love this idea. A big thing with blue eyes and DM is the story behind it and adding manga panels to these new decks could show: "hey, these sky Striker girls have awesome lore too!" And create a new audience instead of hanging nostalgia like a carrot on a stick.
I personally think it aught to be *_DM Branded VS "Blue-Eyes Galaxy"._* The idea being that DM would be bolstered by Branded and an expanded Fusion engine, whereas Blue-Eyes would have cards like Nebula Dragon and Starliege Seyfert to Make Xyz Summons of rank 8 Galaxy-Eyes monsters easier... Even have 2 Galaxy Soldier and the Cyber Dragon Infinity package for good measure. It also diversifies the summon methods, showing how it's not a requirement to use them all to do well
Ok. Now we need a full video with that custom product. Like a full deck list, (if any) custom cards made and inserted, a duel and even a 3x deck profiles for each. That should go on the main channel. It will show new comers exactly what they should expect when they first get into Yu-Gi-Oh! etc. Love ur videos guys!!
Unironically, you could make an Odd-Eyes structure deck, because the Odd-Eyes archetype contains every type of summoning mechanic minus link (which the structure deck could introduce a brand new Odd-eyes link monster). It would actually be a good way to teach the various types of Yugioh cards in this game.
I could only imagine how stressed people would be trying to learn how to use a pendulum card in their very first deck ever and knowing nothing about the game lol
@@animegx45 it clearly isn't otherwise they wouldn't have made Odd-eyes the way they did. Plus an Odd-eyes deck could potentially give them an excuse to finally make an actual Odd-eyes/Performapal link monster. Maybe it could even be the first pendulum link monster.
@@dustinvance243 Odd-eyes was made the way it was because of the story in the anime. Actually, I think buddy woreded it poorly. He proposed a structure deck, which is a very different topic from a starter.
This is the first fantastic idea that I genuinely think can help bridge the gap between hardcore and casual players. Showcasing fan favourite old cards with modern archtypes both slightly simplifies the MOUNTAINOUS information gap necessary to play modern Yu-Gi-Oh. While also allowing players who are just coming back or new players who got hooked by the old animes to play actual characters/monster archtypes they care about
Too bad ppl who work on Konami r&d are assholes who get butthurt when the community is right and they wrong. In the next starter they are going to print dian keto and fissure just to prove their point!
Your idea is actually genius, not only because it would be a good introductory tool, but also because you could take these decks apart and use their cards to build an actually semi-competitive Bystial Branded deck. That would not only give beginners a way to jump right into tournament play if they so desire, but also give already established players a reason to buy this product, greatly improving its appeal from a business point of view.
For me to this day my favorite starter deck remains to be the link starter because it ACTUALLY did its job of teaching you the latest mechanic introduced at the time with some simple to use but very competent monster effects that were designed to... Well, link summon. The only downside is that the Link monsters we were introduced to were a bit shallow in terms of utility with only decode talker being the main standout. Sure, link spider saw some niche play here and there but for a while DT was even a staple in the early link era (yeah I know because we were very slim for options at the time).
In my opinion people very much exxagerate how hard it is to learn modern Yu-Gi-Oh i taught myself at 10 years old from just youtube and it only took me about a week.
No 10 year old speaks like that nor has the funds for yugioh lol and if you meant you taught yourself when you were 10, then it doesn't really matter considering the game has almost completely changed and is the point of the video lol
My "starter set" is a box with 3x albaz and 3x traptrix with side decks. Its also got the playmats with a quick breakdown of main combos. I tried this with a mtg veteran, yugioh first timer. We were both pretty drunk but I gave him the rundown of turn order, how the chain works, spell speed, and to read into the EXACT verbiage (eg when vs if), and the concept that when a target is flipped or moved, it is treated like being a new card. He did fantastic, catching on to all the interactions without needing coaching except Called By vs Ash Blossom. After that, they were really good back and forth games. So what's a good starter product? Honestly, a lot of the new starter decks are good starter products. If all konami did was repackage some of the more modern ones like Crimson King vs Fire Kings and give a few deck formulas, that would be a great product to get people really up to speed with what games at the local card store could feel like. I think having the scenario duel could also be a fantastic tool to get people to understand key interactions like losing targets, missing timing/chain blocking, and spell speed/priority.
One thing I don't see many people talking about is the anime. Maybe having a new anime series or a movie with existing characters play more modern Yu-Gi-Oh with more modern cards and decks. I remember many of my friends and I actually learned a lot about different archetypes from the anime, and it even helps new players decide on the archetype they want to play. I remember thinking that Yusei's Junk archetype was so cool as it allowed him to reuse monsters from the GY as material for Synchro summoning. I also remember that one of my friends really enjoyed seeing Kite from Zexal use Galaxy-Eyes as the monsters seemed extremely awesome to him.
I love this. Showcasing old archetype synergies with new ones makes people curious on how well the new one works with others by nature, pushing you into learning modern combos
That's exactly what i think, also that could work for a anime plot. Yami yugi, Kaiba and Joey playing with a mix of old and modern cards. Maybe could be more interesting for a "old school" Yu-Gi-Oh to play and learn the new mechanic without that fear of not knowing what a XYZ/Link summon is
Onboarding products are usually designed to teach the structure of a game, which is not how the game is ever played practically. Its a problem across several tcgs, with the main exception being pokemon. the decks are underpowered, but the game is simple and streamlined, such that your understanding of it isnt altered when you move away from starter products. Your ideas for ygo are excellent. Decks that are functionally closer to true gameplay and still simple to pilot are ideal. In mtg, its fairly common to create your own starters that are balanced to each other so the new player can experience full gameplay without being overwhelmed. This is a similar line of thinking, so it should work better than the current method
I like these ideas Paul! I’ve been playing mostly Pokémon and magic lately. I can convince friends to play those card games, but mentioning YuGiOh always gets groans. People have this reputation that the game is too complicated considering the number of unique mechanics different archetypes can have.
Literally the same exact problem on my end. My friends recently got into Commander on the MTG side and asking them to give Yugioh a shot is literally impossible.
try introducing them using only simple cards. If you're just playing for fun, there's no need to conform to essays and long combos/archetype learning when there is a surplus of short and simple cards in the grand pool.@@buttheadvideos
Branded Dark Magician would also work well because branded actually allows you to go into Dagoon. And Dragoon is actually not banned in the TCG so they can totally just put it in and make the deck quite powerful
Mad how different the game is from when I was a kid (2000's). So damn complicated. I also played a bit when the best decks had "Dragon rulers" and "Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack" and it's even complicated now compared to that era from what I can see. Probably a good thing in a way because it's carved out a long term niche for itself but it's definitely not easy to get into.
Definitely has the exact same pros/cons path of exile has, extremely complex and daunting to get into with a fast gameplay pace, but super enjoyable and rewarding for people like me who enjoy that insane complexity because of how much there is to learn and how many different things there is to try and play with.
As someone that came back to the game after 20 years: I really wish Konami had products that really teach how the current game plays. I got some structure decks in 2022, I liked them, but then I learned that none of those were up to date with the content that I was consuming at the time. It shocked me when no one was playing Machina or performapals because there were just better cards available. The more I re-learned, the more I thought that none of the products currently available would help me actually learn how the game is played today.
Before watching this video I was thinking the best way to approach this problem would be a structure deck with an archetype that had all extra deck summoning types and landed on D/D/D but I like how you approched it with a hybrid of a classic nostagic deck mixed with a modern deck but also contain cards that work well when mixing the 2 starter decks like 2 newbies bought the 2-player set together and then traded with each other
I recently gotten back into the game after playing at a very casual level 6 or so years ago. I learned playing abcs and lightsworn, and now am relearning playing traptrix, fire kings and labyrinth. Learning how the game worked with fun casual decks that still had some complex lines and then learning how the game is played with meta decks at a high level has been incredibly helpful.
Yugioh deck products still only having cards at 1-copy and expecting you to buy 3 of them when most newer tcgs give you everything at full copies is plain stupid. Not only an artifiical way to sell more copies but you end up with way more useless bulk.
100% agree with those criticisms. You bring some healthy discourse to the YGO community bro. You're easily one of the best on RU-vid, imo. I stopped playing when link summoning killed my Spatial Collapse/Ojama Trio deck, that used things like Floodgate Trap Hole and Quaking Mirror Force and Ghosttrick Yuni-Onna to put things permanently face-down. I wish I could run Vanity's Emptiness in my Spirits deck too, lol. I feel like Konami has terrible taste in what's healthy for a format, and the outright ban of floodgates is weird considering the insane chains of summons possible in a single turn phase in modern yugioh. It's so weird to me that decks that insist on making all of their removal monster-based are rewarded for their rigidity, in that sense. What they've offered as a return/onboarding product has 0 appeal to me for the reasons you describe, but the upgraded versions of old archetypes using their modern engines to upgrade is perfect. Probably the best I've ever heard of. Honestly, using modern engines to power up old archetypes to make those old archetypes reach their peak level of power would be the perfect way to teach people the game. Would love to see a library of decks doing this. In Magic: the Gathering terminology, that lines up with the idea of an 'Uber-Johnny' player archetype: Someone who tries really hard to make an impossible strategy possible. Or, serious builds for joke concepts. I feel like it's the most fun way to play magic, so it'll probably translate into yugioh really well. You've described the modern engines for DM/BEWD, but yeah, making an extensive list of all the old archetypes to be updated would be awesome. Konami could even release some new cards specifically to boost those decks up to be a bit more modern, if they wanted to be proactively helpful. I actually feel like those old weak cards from the first few sets was where they should have been basing the archetypes on. Skull Servants for example is an awesome archetype because of the support it received. It'd be cool to things like Celtic Guardian, Toons, Dark Scorpions, Archfiends etc receive that level of support. Gate Guardian, even. Them releasing whole decks at max power of old shitty archetypes would be really popular, imo. Fingers crossed.
As a returning player maybe it wouldnt help much putting legacy themes all over the place as much as releasing products according to the game with creative tips and variety. For example, I love the mechanics of the Rokket Archetype, as well as Sky Striker, and Labrynth and Suships. The themed decks (fire kings, crimson king, albaz) are actually pretty nice
I feel you. Its almost like to onboard someone you need to teach them how to train their brain to play against all the different archetypes that each break the game in their own special way. Idk how to do that because frankly when i started i immediately broke my brain trying to play at locals. Its tough. I guess master duel, but its hard to tell someone who wants to play with other people to sit there and grind against faceless people until they arent garbage at reading lines
This is actually an exceptionally great idea. The best part I think is it'd be a really good way to shatter the new/hyper casual "purity" conception, that you're not playing a "real" version of a deck if it isn't pure one archetype because "that's how the anime does it". Seeing old favorites like the usual nostalgiabait DM era cards alongside new cards would hopefully be enough to break that weird mental mold that seems to form in this game. Also, I could see something like this seeing success for each of the 3 nostalgia eras (DM, GX, 5Ds), having semi-modern builds that incorporate parts of the protagonist/antagonists decks as well as many of the already existing re-trains would help so much. Even with your idea, while Dark Magician is obviously the cash cow, we already have people playing a pseudo "Yugi Branded" deck with Branded Chimera. This is a genuinely great idea, and I think that a guided tour of the modern game would not be nearly as confusing as people make it out to be. The game is only horrendously confusing when it was introduced to you with "T set pass" and then the first thing you see when you coming back is "3 disruptions, 2 omins, and 16k damage on board"
I feel like the best starter product would be a series of starter boxes in the size of something like old Speed Duel boxes where you and a friend buy one to play. They would start out as these older starter decks, but as you go further, you open small groups of cards and make the new deck list. As both players progress, the game gets more complex without throwing new players in the deep end. The idea is to end on a mid-powered deck with an okay starting collection. Going with this idea, there are two ways: very generic support with light engines or archetype-in-a-box. Worst case scenario is a goat format box for players who want to play modern yugioh.
To me, my favorite casual yu-gi-oh experiences have been the different events in master duel where they give you the loaner decks. For most of those events people can make their own decks but a when you play against someone else with the structure, it's a lot of fun. I may be the only person who wants this but I would love a two player deck set that just has two low power archetype decks up against each other like giant ballpark beetrooper vs plunder patrol or something
I really like your idea at the end. I think making a 2 player product like this is a hard task seeing how front loaded the modern game is, I can see how if you were playing along with a friend and the tutorial manga's first 10 or more pages was just one player going at it it could be frustrating. In my opinion I think the best thing would be to have these lower power decks that teach you all the relevant mechanics (chains, sumoning mechanics, combos, hand traps, etc.) with some back and forth, and then include a set of upgrade cards were the product teaches you how to upgrade the deck into something resembling the modern game complete with a guide on what cards to take out and why, and the new interaction you can try as you play with the upgraded decks. Also just maybe adding one or two bosster packs of the newest set could be a fun way to get new players excited about what's currently going on on the TCG.
I've been looking through my classic cards from my collection, I really missed the days of building a board over a few turns and dropping a big tribute summon and having that be an accomplishment. I think I want to get some decks and people together and make an anime style classic format. Maybe fusions only, and only allowing a few generic staples. I want to try and bring back playground yugioh. When having a united we stand on a tyrant dragon or a blue eyes was the biggest flex
There is something that could be quite cool if done well. A guided "VISAS 2-PLAYER LORE BOX" product, in which you play a Visas Deck against their parts (Scareclaw, Tearlaments, Kashtira and Mannadium), and for each win you attach specific cards like you "rare hunter" them and play against the next. That could bring to nice end for the Visas Archetype and attract new and returning players to the grounds of how the game works competitively.
You're so right about every archetype having its own way of breaking the rules nowadays lol Zoodiac being the best xyz deck back in the day wasn't even a deck that xyz summoned legitimately
Your deck idea is such a good idea, a mate wants to learn so we can play a couple of casual games but it's so hard to dive straight into watching someone have a 15 minute turn
Id love to see you guys do a series of videos that breaks down those different archetypes and talk about the themes and mechanics of each. Maybe even like deck examples and how to build for that archetype. That would be very dope
I like the idea of theme based dm dark magician and blue-eyes decks that use more modern cards and can be upgraded to a payable strategy for locals. But I do think starter deck actually have a place for the game but need to be upgraded. From trying to teach people completely new to yugioh. The amount of info just to get started is overwhelming especially if you aren’t being shown by someone else. I like the idea of giving someone something simple with a basic explanation of the rules so they can learn and play in the shortest amount of time to see if they even like the premise of the game. But I think this product needs to be clear it’s a introductory product meant to learn the game, but then give steps to compete. Maybe they throw a bunch of staples in a different section of the deck box so the player gets cards worth buying. The guide explains why this cards are good in modern yugioh. Plus an introduction to current structure decks and their play style so they get an idea of what theme they want to move towards
I love the middle ground idea, especially the DM Branded build. That’d obviously focus mainly on fusion summoning, but then changing the blue-eyes variant to specifically be blue-eyes bystial d-link would make it more competent and allow for more summoning types b/c you could link climb into maybe regular Borreload Dragon, synchro for Borreload Savage, and then XYZ for Atum or something The only thing that’d exclude would be pendulum summoning. D-link could handle part of that in Chaos Emperor Pend, but that doesn’t pend summon on its own…
I think the way they would need to do it is have 2 relatively straight forward archtypes, maybe simplified a little bit, with a guide on how you want to combo to start and suggestions on what to summon or use in different situations. With how complicated the game is you need to have that hand holding to show how cards interact with eachother
I once described yugioh as a game designer's card game. Your deck consists of rules and components similar to a separate game in itself. The duels are like if you try to pit your design against another designers. The only way to learn is to play. Your approach would be where you are most comfortable with and just learn other things along they way.
i would have thought a modern starter deck would use an archetype that used all the summoning mechanic with the exception of pendulum maybe? Something like Magikey could even be ideal because it still has vanilla monsters, but uses negates, special summons from GY, banishes, sets backrow from the deck similar to what you would see in modern yugioh. Then maybe pair it alongside a modern Dark magician or blue eyes starter deck so it has a bit more appeal.
@@adamellis6044 you know what i think magikey might be good introductory. normal monster, tuner, synchro, xyz, ritual, fusion and lore that can make new people interested. Simple combo lines. And konami maybe add some recommendations to add to the deck if they want new players to buy box/cards
I find you need to keep it simple at first teaching people Yu-Gi-Oh. If you go full meta teaching it can be super overwhelming and people just want to give up.
Problem is, the summon, set, pass turn, type of duels that these starter decks seem to be teaching is TOO simple and is way too different from how the game is played now.
If you wanna teach meta, the deck has to have 2-3 engines at the least. God knows I have 4 now in my Hungry Burger deck (though for what its worth, its basically a glorified Runick list).
@@Ch1oe2472well to be fair I wouldn’t start anyone out with dealing with a break my board duel or get floodgated where they can’t play either. Games so advanced now learning would have to be broken down in increments and nobody would want to do that imo.
I use Edison format. It teaches you the fundamentals and still has combos. I have found you can get people playing very quickly through slower formats, just make it clear that is what you are playing. If they enjoy themselves and want to learn modern afterwards once they know what they’re doing the learning curve is much simpler.
I haven't played for a long time and this week me and my partner picked up the slifer and obelisk decks hoping to learn and play for fun. She had a hell of a time trying to understand how the game works so this might be up our alley.
What about Leveled starter/structure decks like (I think) Pokémon has? (Haven’t played TCG since 2006 so just guessing with examples) Like Yugi/Kaiba decks that teach the super basics could be Level 0, and a simplified Salamangrate deck could be Level 3 and a simplified Kashtira could be Level 5. Each level would have multiple options so people could choose an archetype they like at their level and play a simplified version of a relatively relevant deck as (at higher levels, semi-) beginner players. Just a thought from a Yugiboomer who would like to play the game with modern archetypes but at a super basic level.
I love this idea. It also has another benefit, combating a bunch of casual player myths around meta cards. Namely that they can help make weaker/powercrept decks more playable than they would be without them, and showing that stronger cards do have potential to be built in unique and unconventional ways even if the result isn't tier 0.
Given that the last Starter Decks were just token and summon spammers to get Slifer and Obelisk respectively onto the field that barely teach you anything else, anything is a step-up from there. Frankly, given how high the bar of entry is for modern Yugioh at this point, you need to start slow and build up from there rather than just throwing them in at the deep end and watching them have no idea what they're supposed to do - you can hand a Tearlaments deck or a Bystial deck to someone who's never played before and odds are they'll have too many backseat gamers telling them what plays to make and criticising them for "not knowing how the deck works" so they won't be actually learning more than relying on being told what to do by other people, as opposed to being able to guide them through how cards work with simple to understand effects that don't take ages to read and fully understand. Deck Build Pack and Legendary Duelist sets are to me a great way to help build up on the generic cards you get in a Starter Deck, they introduce more archetypes and summoning mechanics to players and help them explore the game more before they become comfortable enough to move on to a Structure Deck and eventually the archetypes and series you find in the core booster sets - heck, Structure Decks actually explain how to use them and what cards to add from what booster packs to help upgrade them, but still having just one copy per deck is just typical Konami pushing you to buy three copies to make it actually viable; if they actually stopped doing that and provided multiple copies of certain cards in one deck, that'd be a big step-up from how they've been doing things for the past 25 years. You can't rush getting people to learn something new and push them into a competitive space right away, but having two decks focused on different Extra Deck summoning styles in a starter set is a step in the right direction - maybe there will be something similar that actually does include certain archetypes that players can then build up their decks around and explore the game in their own ways, who knows - I'd certainly enjoy seeing archetypes from long ago make a return in this way. It shouldn't matter if certain cards in a Starter Deck aren't meta defining or stuff getting played regularly at official tournaments, they should be useful for beginners to get to grips with, and 40 cards having three different effects each to keep track of doesn't do that - they'll soon learn which cards are better to use and swap out those that won't do much to help, but you need to let them explore those options themselves and see just why it's better to replace them.
They should have the starter decks include upgrade cards that add more useful (but more complicated) combo plays to the decks. Preferably have fixed cards to be added instead of random, and have the instruction sheet at the back call out the combo lines for when the player wants to upgrade the deck after learning the basics with the low power base deck.
I really like how some of the newer Starter/Structure decks have a small guide tip teaching players how to upgrade the deck using recently released booster boxes.
@@gutrage thats understandable. Lets see. if a Deck box already had all of the extra cards included to upgrade it, then the problem would be that it could overwhelm a Beginner or Casual player. They will have trouble trying to integrate those upgrades to the deck and probably end up making a large inconsistent deck. Starter Decks are for people who've never played the game and Structure Decks are for more experienced players who want to learn and try out new deck ideas. If they feel like they have learned the basics of the Deck, then they can buy extra Deck copies or booster packs to upgrade that Deck.
I think a deck that has to some extent a combo line, but super simple ones so that they can focus on getting used to the other aspects of the game. I think the Shaddolls were a great example. Doll cards aren't overly complicated and have simple effects and plays at a slower speed that players can get used to. Cards with long texts like branded fusion and the other branded cards can make just playing out turns hard for a starting player. Not only that, but Shaddolls have a really cheap upgrade line through Trap Dolls or IDS. Its not a bad starter deck. It can top a locals and sometimes a regional. I think we need more decks like shaddolls and more products that put decks like dolls into one package for new players (dolls have a structure but its 3 years old now and a new player wont know to buy 3 anyways)
We need "Battle Decks" in Yugioh, similar to Pokemon where they are structure decks at a higher cost but come with a completely competitive deck. 3x Structure Decks and go! only works so much and if people want to learn but always get washed without a ton of investment monetarily, they are going to move on.
This reminds me of a statistic that was going around about Magic a little while ago: based on WotC's data, something in the area of 70% of Magic players don't know what a Planeswalker is. I think this is applicable to this discussion because, assuming the Yugioh demographic is similar, it goes to show how the vast majority of players are not at all entrenched in the game. If someone is online and knows enough about the game to say that "modern Yugioh isn't like this," then that person already isn't their target audience. So from that viewpoint, I'd say that these low-power decks are great for people just starting out like that. If they play a game with Magic Cylinder and Sparkman and like it, then maybe they'll stick around enough to learn more about the game and how it's played. Then maybe that's where your idea would come in, and there could be "competitive" starter decks featuring more modern cards and strategies to ease them into the next steps and the deeper parts of the game. But if someone was just getting into Yugioh, never played it before, I feel like they'd simply be overwhelmed and scared away by something like Despians. "Set Giant Soldier of Stone, pass" is a necessary first step in the game, I think. We, as people who actually play the game and know literally anything about it, tend to forget or misunderstand that most people who play TCGs just do so around a kitchen table with whatever cards they happen to have on hand. And in that kind of setting, I don't think a starter set featuring Swords of Revealing Light is the worst thing.
As someone who learnt the game from the start I can say that Starter decks are the best way to get into the game, but you need to play with other starter decks. That's the main problem with Yugioh. Its 0-100 the moment you pick up the game. There is no step up growth between the basics and just all out meta. While I think the ideal would be to just have people play low power formats and progress into full Yugioh as they become accustomed to the way the game plays at each level, its not really possible without other players. Really the best way to learn Yugioh is with MD but MD doesn't support it yet and it still doesn't make these physical products any good. So barring that I suggest they give people decks that include sets of cards to swap out. Like a deck that starts out as a pure basic archetype like Dragonmaid but comes with 2-3 side decks of extra cards that turn it into a playable deck like Dragon maid dragonlink. So a 40 card deck with another 40 ish split into batches you add in as you feel comfortable according to a cheat sheet.
I think the best way to learn the game is to master one deck at a time, a fully constructed deck with all the staples, extra and side decks. My approach would be the same as trying to teach someone to play a MOBA or an MMORPG; learn the basics of the game and learn your matchups through and through while you one trick a champion or class. Trying to teach everything about the game at once to someone is going to feel extremely overwhelming, specially if you're trying to cover specific niche scenarios that you're barely going to encounter. A structure deck with a yearly Duel devastator or Rarity collection that a new player can just pick a playset and go to locals would be the best way, adding cards for nostalgia's sake will just give the wrong impression of the game like it did to a lot of people in master duel.
We need Edison structure decks honestly Konami should support Time Wizard a lot more because older formats are not only nostalgic but are beginner friendly. I think Edison is the perfect gateway format for new and returning players
I like the idea of having hybrid starter decks so new players grasp what's Yu-Gi-Oh like these days, fast paced with more combo lines than the classic normal summon x monster, set two and pass the turn.
This was something I was really hoping the 2 player starter set would fix - an affordable, quick way to get new players using powerful cards like Pokémon’s league battle decks/champion decks? Great! But sadly it is not the case, considering normal summon sparkman :(
I like your idea for Blue Eyes Bystial and Branded Dark Magician a lot. You only touched on it briefly but to me the most brilliant part of the idea is that you could actually mash the decks together and make a competent Branded Bystial deck.
Has no one noticed the single most common sentiment behind all these comments about new players is basically "how do we get them interested in our very, very complex game"? Not a single person is denying this. Isn't that the actual problem? Modern Yugioh just plain being complex? This is like asking how can we get more people into quantum physics? Maybe because it's quantum physics. Sorry but Konami's answer to on-boarding new players isn't starter decks: it's Rush Duel. They're milking what's left of the player base while preparing for when Rush Duel replaces the main game in a decade.
I play elemental hero Sparkman in every deck I've made since I got him when he was first released. And yes I play spark blaster. The week my friend took his own life points out (if you know what I mean. R.I.P.), I went to a locals event for the very first time. I won against a updated aroma deck and I played a elemental hero deck and the whole duel I didn't draw anything to extra deck summon and they had 8000 and I had 100 at one point and I still won and Sparkman and lady heat carried me through the duel
Despite the community hatred it would receive, I think that a coherent pendulum magician/odd-eyes starter deck would be perfect for learning. PenMag already have in-archetype XYZ, Synchro, and Fusion monsters when utilizing Odd-Eyes. Add one of the various links that work well with pendulum and youre done. One deck that can encompass all aspects of the game at once.
Unless I'm missing something with the reveals, it feels like people might be jumping the gun a bit early on these. It feels like there is plenty of potential with *just* sparkman for more complex play, such as teaching about specific named fusion material vs. generic material, or maybe even some combo play like using fusion deployment or fusion conscription to get to it faster. Overall though, I do think a basic starter product is fine. Yugioh players greatly underestimate how complicated and overwhelming it can be to people starting completely fresh as opposed to just coming back from childhood memories, and there needs to be something in place for them. However, there also should be something for the rest of the people, in perhaps various stages of ascending complexity to help bridge that learning curve instead of having this fantasy land of 2003 yugioh shown in the decks vs. modern yugioh being almost a different game. Having beginner, intermediate, and advanced product with the first one being something like this and the last one being something like a pre-built branded or swordsoul deck would make it much easier to get people into the game
I think you hit the nail on the head, Paul. The issue with getting into Yu-Gi-Oh! Isn’t about learning base mechanics, it’s about how archetypes work. Since there is so many, throwing something like D-Link at someone who just started playing is just not right. There’s three parts to learning Yu-Gi-Oh!: how to play, then how play your deck, and finally, how to play your opponent’s deck/how to play your deck against a given opponent’s deck. The skill gaps between those 3 are pretty large too. So it’s not as progressive linearly as it is exponentially. I would put card selection as something to learn, but honestly that is just a matter of current meta trends, the level of competitiveness you’re playing at, and just simply looking at a tier list by a Top player, I.E. Joshua Schmidt, and getting insight there, as well as of course the actual deck/archetype you’re playing.
I think that’s a good idea but imo just giving dark magician and blue eyes meta relevant support and making them decks with mechanics we actually see in modern yugioh would do the job give the people who’ve only watch the anime something to latch onto but giving them a good deck that can handle itself, give blue eyes good link support turning it into a dragon link and maybe dark magician into a xyz deck but I know Konami won’t
I really don't believe there is any way to teach someone modern Yu-Gi-Oh first nowadays. The game is too complicated, there are too many summoning mechanics, rulings, unique mechanics each archetype has and so on. The only way to do it is to start with older formats like Edison to teach them the basic mechanics and then at some point graduate them to modern Yu-Gi-Oh. I think what Yu-Gi-Oh really needs is a more accessible, easy to learn and understand format that is still one of the premier formats (unlike Speed Duel or something like that). There needs to be an onboarding ramp similar to what Magic is doing: You can start with a Starter deck but relatively easily upgrade it to a competent Standard format deck, then after playing it for a year or so it rotates out and you can use it to create a Pioneer or Modern format deck where the power level is a lot higher. Right now in Yu-Gi-Oh we expect newcomers to compete in a format with 25 years worth of cards and rulings where the actual game rules only matter for the first action of a turn and are broken for every single action after that. There is no way to actually learn the game that way.
I definitely agree. It is quite baffling that they have never done a double starter and given some full power Dark Magician and Blue Eyes decks. Even without the bystial or branded or whatever other engine! I can understand using actually competitive archetype hybrids might be too innovative of an idea to ever expect from Konami. But oddly enough they don't even seem capable of releasing them as pure. They refuse to make that as a seemingly obvious product. Maybe in their mind they feel they can just sell all those support cards in full sets since they think they can rope people into buying packs to pull for it all instead. It feels so weird considering that it wouldn't really cost Konami anything more to print out some DM deck with a focus on Red Eyes Dark Dragoon and the other fusions and xyz, and Blue Eyes with Jet Dragon and the fusions and synchros. They wouldn't be the most competitive but they would offer some powerful cards with coherent strategies at least. And on top of it, they teach multiple mechanics. Those 2 decks can teach Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz all natively. So unless they really want to add in pendulums it wouldn't be that hard to add a few generic Links. It's just so mind boggling that they won't do that as an obvious product. So while you're right that adding Bystials or Branded or whatever else would make it more representative of the modern game, Konami can't even get the first step right of making a product that's representative of modern pure DM and Blue Eyes.
They really need to do maybe biannual starter decks, ONE for each summoning mechanic, for a CHEAP price. I'm talking like no more than $5-$7. And make them actually function as a deck by making them a full archetype deck. Nothing is harder for a new player than learning the extra deck mechanics. The only reason I know how is because I've been playing since the game launched, and was gradually introduced as they came out. Nobody will lose any money if they let new players have a full Dinomist deck to learn pendulums, for example. Dinomist is the easiest pendulum deck. Its perfect for learning the pendulum mechanic. There's an archetype like them for every summoning mechanic. Pendulum: Dinomist Xyz: Gimmick Puppet, maybe Satellarknight. Both of these decks are focused solely on the Xyz summon. Link: World Chalice Synchro: Synchron/Warrior Fusion: Elemental HERO is probably best here. Maybe Gem-Knight. Point is, there are some older decks that arent going to be winning tournaments any time soon that could still be used as teaching tools for new players.
If you make the product value too good then veterans buy all the product to strip for parts. So you either print the card in that deck into worthlessness or no new player see one.
@@josephcourtright8071 these decks would be designed as teaching tools that actually function as a deck, not meta contenders. Yugioh's starter decks are god awful at teaching people how to play, because they are decks without any form of rhyme or reason to them. When Cardfight! Vanguard launched their overDress version of the game, they sold 5 different starter decks for $5 a deck. The decks weren't amazing compared to any constructed deck, and obviously could use improvement, but they did come with 4 copies of the cards that would be required to make the strategy work, and work they did. Point is, nobody is buying out the decks I mentioned above. There is no excuse as to why yugioh cant do something like this to help new players learn the very overcomplicated game they keep digging a deeper hole for.
The problem about Blue Eyes and Dark Magician is that Konami doesn't actually care about them. If they wanted to make a half decent Dark Magician or Blue Eyes deck, they just would. Hell, it doesn't even have to make a ton of mechanical sense. Why wouldn't Kashtira just be a DM revamp? Or have Blue Eyes play like Swordsoul? They make the effects, just give them different names and art. They just don't because they don't actually care about the franchise's supposed mascots.
A good starter deck should aim to teach ppl what engines are, 1 to 2 card combos to look for, bosses you can make with your engines, and most importantly, maintaining card advantage and not overextending. That should pretty much cover the very BASE of modern yugioh, then they can learn the specific nuances later on as they play people.
Unfortunately the current tcg is not only about playing but also about profit, a bystial deck would destroy the value of some of the already reprinted cards and I’m not sure that Konami would do that, or at least not now
at one time, i had a decent collection. it's miniscule now, but back then it was good enough. the game has evolved, so my decent collection is now pretty trash, but it got the job done. back then, i taught people the game by crafting a deck from my collection for them to use against a deck i still have to this day, a deck specifically designed to teach mechanics. the extra deck has one of every summon, it has special summons, burn damage, revival, equip cards, traps, etc. everything but rituals basically. we'd play a handful of games with those decks before i let them start altering it from my card box, and we'd keep going. i think this is the best way to teach someone.
Was just talking about this the other day with my friends. Structure decks need to go back to having multiple copies of key cards so that they're more consistent, and having the decks pre shuffled before they go in the box
Yes I love it. perfect deck updates, I literally just added bystial to my blue eyes deck on master duel after refusing to for forever but eventually realizing I kinda need to.
Lmao, speaking of beginners and the 2 player starter deck, why is it priced at $65-70 (give or take) AUD at big retailers like EbGames and various online stores? 🤡🤦♂️ Talk about lack of accessibility. Seasoned players are already peeved with the way they upped rarities for engines like Diabellstar, but at such a high price point, how can they appeal to newcomers?
When I went to play at my locals for the first time I was like 2 decades behind still on summon set pass. It took months until I made a proper deck for modern standards.
So I definitely agree that structures are underpowered, but they are definitely a way to slowly turn up the heat on a new player without burning them out. I do however agree they need to release a mid tier structure format that can act as an in between them and the net deck environment. I think maybe a 2 deck VS pack like in MtG might be viable, with a few pre baked hand examples to show a combo line or show how interruption should be thought of.
Personally I think a deck with all the powercreeped cards that are still very viable. If i was to take examples from MD, low rarity cards like chalice, book of moon, compulse, torrental. You can have a played out situation where 1 side chalice the monster to negate effects however the other book of moons the monster to effectively dodge the negation. Then on summon theres a torrental but you use compulse to save ur own monster, preferably 1 with an on summon effect so the "Reason" is for you to reactive the effect. The real issue is how do you teach people combos, for me 1 of my favourite decks is marincess... and that has a pretty linear link climb and if we're teaching new players they have the whole splash mage into anemone to jump a link climb. Or u can make a competent D/D/D deck and throw people into the deep end with most of the summoning mechanics lol
Konami could release preconstructed decks that contains 3 copies of everything for a deck with some extra cards to have a "sideboard" of extra cards/copies. Konami "could" raise the price as compensation for this as players would only need to buy one deck instead of three. I think Konami doesn't do this because it's a lot more impressive to say you sold 30,000 copies of a structure deck than to say you sold 10,000 copies of a super structure deck.
Also, I'd argue that Utopia decks are the simplest archetype to make a starter deck of. Fairly simple combo line of getting 2+ level 4s onto the field to make an XYZ (which requires relatively little explanation), and then upgrading your Utopia in different ways. This leaves you with a powerful (and cool monster) that can do tons of damage and the variants offer different forms of utility.
For me Yugioh is about not being competitive and having fun. That's why I enjoy watching the videos you guys make. I never want to play in tournaments. I'd rather play Cardfight Vanguard tournaments. Even in it's older formats you can still play the game from what I have experienced. I quit Yu-Gi-Oh again after getting knocked out even when playing for fun cause they just want to play the meta all the time. Your favorite cards are still useless with new support.
The way i'd fix this issue is create themed starter decks released in pairs designed to be 'rivals' Each with three ten card engines. of specific archetypes, And then ten staples in common. IE: DRagons VSspell casters using blue-eyes, Red eyes, and rokkets, VS Spellcasters with dark magician, pendulum magicians, and spell counters.
Modern Yu-Gi-Oh is inherently an extremely hard game to get into with a ridiculously steep learning curve if you want to play with the meta. It might be better to start by introducing them to simpler concepts a la Edison format before bringing in hand traps, monsters that turn into spell/traps, linking your opponent's monsters off, etc. Once they get used to the basic Yu-Gi-Oh mechanics, then they can start getting better cards and learning advanced concepts. But I do accept your point that the decks have to be better. Having sparkman, magic cylinder and swords of revealing light is just plain bad. Having something like the OCG Asia-English structure decks would teach the main mechanics, and be halfway decent. Nowhere near competitive, but new players are not going to be ready for tournament play anytime soon. To be honest, giving new players Branded and Bysstials would be throwing them off the deep end if they don't already have a mentor to guide them.
You don't need to mash Bystials and Branded together into a DM & Blue eyes deck, Konami just make 5-6 NEW cards for the archetypes that aren't ass so they can compete as decent rogue options, then you'll get the boomers in AND they might stick around as opposed to getting clapped once at locals, then going home forever.
I don't think a product like this needs to expose people to the completely batshit crazy current state of the game right away honestly, you need to ease people in to things, or it's too much at once and they lose interest. I don't see it as deceiving, I see it as an introduction. There should be like volume 1-3 type thing, were it gets gradually closer to the current thing.
This is a great idea, Paul. Maybe you can pitch this to an organization like Card Market (or any other re-seller). If Konami doesn't do it, maybe they can? Could be a good business opportunity for both of you.
I think it would be even better if they release not-so-optimized version of triple starter decks that synergies to the set that is released together or back to back instead of using the nostalgia trick. Taking Traptrix and Branded as examples, the starters will have the minimum play sets for the archetype to run and include 1 play set of staples exclusive to the starter that player picked (Ash for Traptrix and Effect Veiler for Branded), and the set booster will have the stronger supports for those archetypes optimally with reprints of staples that are high on demand for the current meta, and cards are available in multiple rarities to help keeping the primary market sales going. As for mixing the archetypes like DM + Branded, Konami just need repeat this same trick by announcing DM is coming which helps boosting sales using assets they already have and add another new archetype to fill up the set while also introducing new support for DM + new rarities or alt-arts. As for how would players know DM + Branded is a thing, it is time for players’ creativity to shine since we all know mix and match can bring something new and fun, or worst case worst, we are in 2024 which has internet and content creators around.
