I blame Konami TCG’s greed. They are so desperate to push new products that they don’t even care if the player base likes what they’re selling. The lack of a tv show is probably a big hit too. Also better prize support would be nice.
I was gonna say "What do you mean "lack of TV show", but then I remembered, oh yeah, SEVENS aired on Disney XD and GO RUSH!! hasn't come to America yet
Truthfully, i havent kept up with the anime since zexal. I hope they can make another good series soon. I totally get that their original idea is that Yugioh is a children’s card game, but no kid is learning how to do snake eyes combos and they are definitely not dropping 1k on a deck. If they make an anime they should take a leap of faith and target the show to their real audience. Have mature themes, have complex characters, really make it something an older audience can enjoy. If not that just make a show that uses card lore. Arcane from riot isn’t based on the actual gameplay of league, yet its roped a wide audience in with good characters and an intriguing story. The albaz lore is just waiting there to be shown on tv.
Okay, I listened to the whole video before commenting. Very well explained and fairly written We all know the problems with yugioh- It’s too expensive, competitive play is just tier zero format into tier zero format, and there are no casual formats. Worst of all, Konami seems to be doing all this on purpose and doesn’t appear to be interested in maintaining the game.
It’s just a really expensive hobby. I have a wife and a 1 year old. If it’s a choice between feeding my family and buying a Fiendsmith core, I pick feeding my family. I’ll just wait until it hits Master Duel and play with it there
Greed isn't killing it. A lack of a cultural footprint / larger franchise awareness is. Not having an Anime, Manga, and actual Video Games that aren't mobile games like they used to is hurting it's mass market appeal. We used to have merchandise like toys in regular retail stores all the way through GX but now it's basically nothing. This helps draw more people into the competitive TCG. It's now trying to function like MTG where it's just a TCG but that larger brand synergy akin to Pokémon is what made it blow up in the first place.
My locals group is very passionate about the game but 7 months of Tier 0 along with having to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars just to compete has drawn the line for many. I was still excited about Yubel and hopeful for the game, however after seeing the announcement of the fiendsmith as a secret along with mulchummy, I have reached my limit. The game has become extremely unfun since January and the expectation I’ll need to spend 100s for another one car combo has drawn the line for me, after the WCQ this year I’m selling out and finding another hobby.
Imagine paying 1000k+ to win a console, a mat, a deck box, sleeves. Imagine paying 1000k+ just to see your deck get cut in half losing over 50% of the value. Imagine paying 1000k+ and still having to pay for stay, travel, food. Aw well
The common use of that valuation is “ 1k “. Typing 1000k is an uncommon thing. Could be read as 100,000 or mil if there’s no context. Just thought I’d share
Konami didn’t charge you that. YOU paid that to win and decided to play comp. Literally you can’t blame Konami because you have the choice. Now if Konami were to say they are purposely making cards expensive that’s different. YES they are intentionally making chase cards high rarity but in the end of the day the meta is made by the community.
Vendor here... definitely seeing a decline in sales. Cards are too expensive and we need more reprints bad. I wish they would put complete deck cores into main sets. Imagine if all the unchained or Melodious cards released in the same set as the new support as commons. Dozens of archetypes like Madolche gets scattered reprints across several sets and they just flat out don't reprint cards entirely for no reason. Rogue decks have no business costing hundreds of dollars.
@@dudono1744it's one of those things you should have gotten when it dropped to like 10 tbh. But it is bad that the only drytron card that got a reprint was one of the rares to make it holo instead of the card that was expensive
I quit the game two years ago, around the same time as many sellers stopped carrying. However, I didn’t quit for that reason. I quit because, in my locals, apparently for months I had had an issue with slow playing. As someone with autism, the way my brain works is that if nobody is telling me that I am doing something wrong, then I’m not doing anything wrong. Over time, the people in my locals were telling our local judge attendee that I was slow playing, but I was never informed of that or anything. All of this came to a head in June of 2022, when I showed up for locals like I always did, having revamped my classic Salad build with cards like Accesscode. My first two rounds, I won without a hitch. My third round, I was paired against the judge guy. We end up in a game three scenario, and I, not knowing what to do under the time pressure and with some of the new things I had in my deck, took longer than normal. He would’ve won in time if not for my Update Jammer negating all effects during damage step. The judge guy got pissed and started yelling at me, saying how I was slow playing on purpose for a win, when that was never my intention. I moved into the final round very rattled by what had just happened, and the judge guy was hovering over me during the final round to see if I slow played again. When it came time for prizes, I finished third, and I attempted to make amends by splitting my packs with the judge guy and apologizing and explaining. Instead, he told me about the complaints that they had kept getting about me slow playing. If they had just told me at any time before that, I would have known and had the opportunity to try to intentionally change and speed up my play. Instead, no one told me, meaning I was led to believe I wasn’t breaking rules as I was playing (I knew the slow playing rule existed, but I was always moving and making my plays as fast as I could, with zero intentions of going to time if I could avoid it, as I hate the time rules.) The end result was me getting yelled at and being very scared and feeling betrayed by a community I had felt close to and had trusted for years, which, considering I live with autism, I struggle to trust people in a social environment or feel comfortable around them. Being betrayed by the closest social group I had caused damage I still haven’t recovered from fully, as even at my MTG nights I can’t bring myself to trust that I am someone who people are even okay with tolerating there. As it just so happened, it turns out I left right before the meta went to a tier zero format and the product became even worse. I haven’t looked back much since, and I don’t know if I ever will.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I have mild autism. Whenever I play the game, it sometimes takes me a while, too. Because I'm not sure what end board I want and various other things. So I completely understand you about everything you said.
The loss of all foil deck build packs just killed any chance of them ever succeeding. It doesn't feel good opening a pack of a bunch of rares and 1 holo
Did you look at OCG profits so you came to that conclusion or you pulled that info out of your ass? Also who would like to have best of 1 YCSs only lol
Zoo to Tear to Kash to Snake eye to FiendSmith Snake eye…. We had variety for 1 format and all the pros were crying so of course Konami listened to them 😄
I went from a regular at locals buying sets, to a seldom player, to a singles collector and now I’m genuinely pondering if I just like shiny cardboard, and if that’s the case I might as well start buying Pokémon since the scene of collecting there is a lot better. Sucks because I like yugioh for nostalgia reasons but the formats are unfriendly to play, next to impossible to get friends into because of its complexity, and collecting isn’t even that great as all the old sets get reprints and the newer competitive sets don’t until the end of the year when they’re about to be limited/forbidden. Genuinely anywhere I look to find a place to stay with yugioh im met with 10x more reasons why I shouldn’t
I've been playing collecting for years but there's no point no more. It's really toxic power creap makes spending money on other decks pointless. I'm very close to getting out and never looking back.
Yugioh (TCG) is probably gonna be a big 3 game for a while yet, but it's being carried _hard_ by coincidental successes, and nostalgia. Ocg has to fight several card games of comparable popularity in Japan, so they have very little choice but to actually pay attention to their fans and put their best feet forward. TCG? It's arguably the clearest example of "carried by nostalgia" that you can find. They don't improve their products, they waste goodwill, and instead of building on their best products, they decide to make them worse, and increase the prices for weaker sets. But we stay, because it's our childhood, or our first real game. The problems and solutions are so well known by now, that Konami not fixing them is blatantly choice. I still love this game. I will still play this game, but they have to pick up their own slack soon, before they lose the market that they've been taking for granted.
Konami does better with this in JP because there’s competition there. Here they don’t have to care because it’s been just Mtg and Pokemon for 25 years. Now that these other games are coming up with actual prospect, it’s slowly coming to bite them for it. It probably doesn’t seem too bad for Konami right now, but it’s a slippery slope. More locals get rid of the game, more bad product, more trash ratios, more crap events, and it’s gonna knock them down.
The TCG part of the game is falling down and for this reasons: 1) A lot of stores has stopped buying TCG product because ends up stored and selled in a price much lower that the one its supposed to be selled. 2) The prices of the second market are ridiculous and that is becuse Konami keeps shortprinting cards and also beacuse not much people buys and opens product. 3) The game cant get new players, this is in part because of the complexity of the game but also because there are no good products for a real begginer, the recent two player deck was a failure and the rarity collection was a good start but Konami keeps printing better staples worth at least $60 to $100 or banning them when they ended giving them money (Baroness). 4) The competitive part sucks, its not new that Yugioh has the worst pricing on tournaments, you invest $1000 on a deck to compete and you get back $150... If they dont want to give real money on pricing at least give GOOD rewards that are worth a good sum, not just a shitty vanilla monster and a couple of packs as a reward for topping.
back in edison format i remember topping got u a frick ton of packs and boxes with the current prizing. idk why all that was scaled back... the prizing has been a problem for a long time. i think people are playing for clout rather than real rewards. ive had to back pack vend to make the trips worth it and vending payed better than playing.
I’m a former max rarity collector/meta whale. Now I buy low rarity and pick my formats. Then I pick up QCRs from rarity. I am spending on average £500 less a month on the game… I am not alone.
Personally I'm taking falling prices to get a few things like my set of 1st edition ulti allures, unique prizing like Giant cards and things that personally resonate with me. I'm glad I held off on the starlight market completely
Comparing people saying yugioh is dying during synchros and what is currently going on is coping. Living in the dead center of SoCal which has one of the highest competitive scenes for yugioh in the USA, most competitive people/shops I’ve seen have started to incorporate one piece and Lorcana. A lot of people who go to every yugioh events in the state or surrounding ones have started to focus more on one piece and especially Lorcana, because at the end of the day it’s funnier to be competitive in a game where your rewarded for playing the better decks and being good. One piece and Lorcana easily pay for themselves after the initial investment, where in yugioh, you can play the best deck and play all day, just so you can win a mat and deck box in you don’t get top 2. Those won’t even get you anywhere close to how much you spent for your deck let alone the time put in.
that i do agree with. i went to pokemon because top tier meta decks range from 40$- maybe max 120$? and the rewards for playing are good plus tricky gym introducing GLC which gave the game an even bigger boost. yugioh doesnt do crap unless the local shops do extra things.
It's the TCG side of YGO is in danger, thanks to all the "amazing decisions" they're making over the years, plus the quality control is decreasing more and more. You can easily open a pack-fresh card and it has a damage even in the middle of the pack. And somehow Konami here still chooses to ignore those problems
Players don’t like expensive meta decks or staples. The only solution is to either buy the singles or open packs to see if they can pull it. I see players refuse to buy mediocre product so the quantity of singles are low.
Also the decks didn't have a clear gameplan, not even something as basic as rank 4 turbo. I think that would really help new players to know what they're trying to achieve.
I liked that there was an attempt with that style of product, but how was the execution of it so poor? No playmats, not even paper ones. No bonus materials for new players e.g. sleeves or dice Only a single scripted duel. In my opinion they should have had a script for Synchro to win, a script for Xyz to win then a final page encouraging duelists to shuffle up and play without a script. Coming up on 7 months later and no follow up product even announced.
@@RJJones1992 Imagine something like a small unique rubber mat with the boss monsters, maybe a die, hell a field center or sleeves. Any of those could have been more welcoming to new players or returning OGs. Just a shame.
Yugioh is doing horrendously. 1. It is getting no new players 2. It has no collector scene 3. 90% of its physical products are terrible 4. We are bouncing from tier 0 to tier 0 meta 5. Its absurdly priced in comparison to other card games 6. Stores are refusing to sell its products due to how bad they are Like dont sugar coat it. Its doing the worst its ever been, to the point most stores are refusing to sell it.
Maybe F2p Pokemon G, Go fest is coming up if you want to socialize with others without paying for something and that community has grown a ton again the last few years and you probably have a local group that plays regularly if you can find their discord.
@alexanderpondarius8586 Past formats. Made up formats (theres a reason all the big tubers do the made up formats). Shiny cards for collection and past formats, which as the meta ironically gets more expensive collectibles are getting cheaper due to the bas business practices Merch 24/7 anime channel Plenty of ways to enjoy yugioh outside a metagame and master duel
Konami simply doesn't care about the TCG, we are their paypigs, the OCG is their sweet baby. The difference in treatment between the two formats is crazy. I've been saying for years that the tcg was headong down this road, but all I caught was scorn and ridicule, and here we are. I wonder just how long it will take people to understand that unless people STOP BUYING INTO A SHIT PRODUCT, THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE.
At least in my area the people “quiting” are all just waiting for snake eye to fall off or at least a shake up in the format and with info coming only making it more obnoxious and somehow the same stale format we have had since phni seems to have accelerated this process as no one wants to play this format
Weird that's exactly the pattern of Tearlament into ishizu. When the new Kash power creeps snake eye, prepare your rogue decks; cause when THAT deck gets nerfed we get to have a balanced, varied, affordable format... For 1-3 months. If the cycle repeats, that is.
@@dragon-id5uj the feel this go around is different it might be because it feels like we went from a very open enjoyable format to 6 going on 9 months of boarderline tier zero where the mirrors aren’t even enjoyable like tiers were and fp tear didn’t stick around that long like 2 months max while snake eye has enjoyed half a year
@@alexmeek610 The thing is that you're never going to have a 100% return rate. Of the people that left due to each t0 format there will always be a percentage that picked another hobby and decided to stick with it rather than coming back. Konami (specially Konami of America) is very stupid in not doing everything in their power to keep their players format after format. On my side I see the glass half full in that economic losses is the only way we'll get KoA to change their vomit-inducing set distribution/structure, but the game keeps suffering in the meantime.
I wouldn’t mind a reboot of the original series. Re-animate it with better quality/ expand on them when the crew were college aged or later in their adult years. Also the tcg needs to switch to the ocg system and not make staples super expensive to get.
The reason they wont do the ocg way is because of the way they do reprints in the tcg. So they need to restructure their entire business model. Ocg does reprints as vanity pieces higher rarities different foil versions just to bling out the commons and whatnot. The reprints in the tcg are just kind of ass as much as the main sets. So it needs an all around overhaul to copy the way the ocg does it BUT the community wont actually like that because the community complains about sets being shit when good cards are easy to get and sellers complain about that too. Stores wont buy and bust as much cases when everything is easy to get. They created an economy that would collapse if they changed it and they are afraid of that probably
Exactly! We are having this conversation with our local LGS. if the Konami has another year of bad sets we will loose our 100 person locals. LGS STORES need to make money. realistically stores CANT sell boxes for 40-60 bucks. What will kill this game is when LGS fold and people don't have places to play
It's such a multi layered problem. 1. Core gameplay isn't enticing and the "rules" are a red herring to how the game is actually played. So without nostalgia or pricing, its just flat not fun to play, at least at high level. So from a prospective card gamer like Rarran, unless its for content, its just a waste of time, let alone money. 2. For the new blood, there's no hook that the anime/manga provided. No cool protagonist you want to get cards from, no cool epic duel moments that was the appeal of the game from its onset. 3. Konami just milks current players with no respect for their inability to not buy cards. The reason why TCG rarity is spread the way it is, is because they sell. And this is the part that was previously highly applicable, to less and less applicable. Mostly because veterans are also more experienced in life and not just young adults out of their first job with sole hobby or playing this game. With less young blood who spend indiscriminately, sets need to really provide value, since this in the end, a hobby you can put as much or less into as you want. And usually change isn't enacted until there's enough data to support such a change, like adapting the OCG rarity distribution and pricing/box. But the problem would be usually these would take too long to actually put into effect. By the time that happens, we would've crossed the event horizon where game is unsalvageable. In the end, people play because others play too. Once the flow of players get lower and lower, the rate of people dropping the game will be exponential. Lack of LCS support can kill entire regions at a time. I don't believe Konami has the aptitude to recognize the writing on the wall. There's probably the people in Japan-side who mostly see the financial reports and don't really know the game at all who admin in Americas have to get permission from to make changes needed, and that bureaucracy make implementing timely change impossible.
cope. ask any locals in south florida, it used to be 20+ now we can barely get 10. why play boring combo heavy hand trap yugioh when one piece and lorcana offer fun, back to back, interaction gameplay? just let yugioh rest in peace at this point. people are getting scammed by konami because the only way konami makes money thru tcg is by releasing sets w op, short printed cards.
you know what weirds me out about what Konami is doing lately, there have been exactly zero equip cards released in over a year, an entire subtype of spell cards really? I think the problem is they are only making cards for the most narrow percentage of the playerbase possible now.
Regarding your Arc-V point. That series had the potential to be the most honest bridging of the casual anime fans and competitive serious card fans ever but halfway through it got stuck up its own was and became one of the biggest wastes of potential for the franchise. That's why when it was dubbed it got abysmal ratings because the sub watchers were already warning not to bother with it. Also being on Nick gave it no room for promition.
@alexmeek610 not to mention that a lot of the new characters (the ones that are _supposed_ to draw in new fans) got sidelined for a trio of nostalgia-bait characters, including one that is . . . controversial . . . among even fans of 5Ds.
@@nicholasfarrell5981 In the Crow vs Shun i laughed so hard about this, promoting nostalgia bait and sidelining the new cast for absolutely no reason when a raging Yuya with Shun trying to reason with him would make way more sense. I will forever blame Ono and the obsession with the overrated 5Ds for that. Literally took the episode time from Xyz and Fusion Dimensions for a "Season 2" Fortune cup with the only positive being fixing Jack's atrocious 5Ds deck finally making it an actual strategy better than a sneak peek deck. Arc-V Season 1 (apart from the fillers) and the Survival Duel with the formation of Lancers was very good. The end of Synchro Dimension with the Zarc tease was incredibly hype (I hated yuzu after that). Xyz Dimension should have been a huge and sad struggle with Zarc trying to take over fueled by Yuto's rage then have a huge stakes war in Fusion Dimension instead of promoting the Ancient Gear structure deck and making Obelisk Force a joke.
I went to an event 2 weeks ago and needed to pickup an SP, got one for 80$. But during that weekend I tried out Lorcana with a friend after buying 2 structure decks and we got really into it and I decided to buy some cards to finish my deck. I bought an entire new deck for 80$. I've gotten 2 more and spend roughly the same. If Konami doesn't fix their printing system, I'm out. I'm getting the gimmick support because its one of my top 3 favorite decks, but after that I'm not buying product tell shit changes.
I'll add that the TCG no longer releasing structure decks isn't helping. They've always been the best way for new players to get started and the Tactical Try decks in Japan are fantastic for beginners. They could try a new format for the product but I haven't seen much innovation from the TCG offices. It really makes me sad because there's now only 2 stores that carry Yugioh in my city, even big stores like Walmart and Toys R Us have stopped carrying it.
@@edstairs4888we usually only get 2-3 structure decks a year we missed the summer one as there isn’t a product to import but ocg news has a upcoming sd in the work that should be our winter deck
@@DarkSymphony777 It would've made sense but konami hates logical decisions as it seems they're seriously going to exclude mermail support in a set that's a clear successor to abyss rising.
I still think the biggest problem the game faces is stagnancy, due to the fact that we haven't had anything actually new introduced since link monsters way back in 2017.
Another thing that really needs to be addressed is that YGO has is the single worst TCG for casual play/casual players because it's practically non-existent at this point, it's insane to me how one of the biggest anime IP's in the world has pretty much no ways to even play casually unless your either really lucky enough to a group to do that with or if your locals isn't super competitive which even then the chances of that being a possibility is extremely low. I feel like if they really started actually giving a shit about capitalizing off of the potential of Alternate Formats instead of only just do the bare minimum with Time Wizard or even bring physical Rush Duels over here & actually market it properly the bridge between casual & competitive wouldn't be this egregious as it is currently. Also Konami REALLY need to actually make quality entry level products for new & returning players, it's genuinely inexcusable when Pokemon, Magic heck even Bandai games have really good entry level products & have actual resources for learning their game yet YGO can't even do either properly in the TCG, & they wonder why the game actively struggles to get any new players.
For Yugioh to have a future, they need to start promoting Yugioh for a younger generation (like pushing a format that only allows players that are 20 or younger, and make it appealing to those younger players. Like, pay for their flights, hotel rooms, whatever!) Konami has the money. But if they keep focusing on pushing these expensive formats that only adults can afford, they're gonna lose in the end when all these "Yugi-boomers" have to quit the game for age/health reasons. They need to make Yugioh affordable and push hard to get new players. It may hit Konami's pockets hard in the beginning, but if they don't, they're gonna run out of player base.
My local scene is p much dead, everyone walked away to play other new TCGs. I picked Digimon bc nostalgia does sell...if you do it right. but others moved to OP, DBZ, or just went to master duel. I dont think yugioh is dying, I think its done here. Cards are too expensive outside the US it makes no sense to spend on it when it comes out
I really think the product changes in 2020 where they removed rares and increased the number of secret rares in core sets were disastrous. Sure, they don’t short print anymore but by the ratios, everything is short printed now and it shows in the price to play. Similarly, I think the collector set that started with Toon Chaos has made every other side set significantly less fun and the EV is so low that people don’t open them. All this raises the price of the game and constantly having format issues from lingering ban list decisions doesn’t help anything.
Agreed. Why 8 commons per pack when 99% of them are never even played? If you buy a box now you get maybe 1 card worth more than $10, a handful of useful Super/Ultras, and 4000 pack filler commons that I’ll never use.
The set line Toon Chaos is part of started with Pendulum Evolution in 2017 and there have only been 7 total since then (PEVO > SHVA > FIGA > TOCH > KICO > MAZE > MZMI). They're just once yearly TCG world premier nostalgia bait like the Animation Chronicles sets in the OCG. There's nothing wrong with giving support for show cards or new show cards in general literally once a year. Especially since they generally stick a reprint for some useful stuff alongside them like the Deck Build packs do. Sounds like you're lumping them in with Deck Build packs or something though which they are not part of and have also mostly been fine anyway so I don't know why you'd complain about those either. Well, with the exception of them making the Supers, Rares in more recent ones. Would've been nicer if the change implemented the OCG style sets where anything could be any rarity. Have the packs be more like 3 rares, 2 supers, and 2 secrets, any of which has, say, a 1 in 12 chance to be whatever the higher rarity is in the set. On average you'd get like 14 of the higher ones a box which is fair enough with a 60+ card set.
@@RunicSigils No, I’m referring to the pack design changes (6 rares and a holo instead of 4 supers and a secret) that they then decided to apply to deck build packs after the success of Toon Chaos and none of the world premiere or deck build sets with collector rares have done particularly well overall and the bottom performers are disastrous. Compared to even a “bad” deck build pack like Infinity Chasers, these sets are doing horrendously and it’s not hard to see why - 3 Ultras and being impossible to get playsets of even a *case* of product means that the only people willing to open them and not buy singles are Vendors trying to clear their stock so they can turn the money into slightly better performing core sets. When a set with Purrely, Rescue Ace and Mikanko struggles to move before getting reprinted, that’s a massive red flag - that set should have been a banger and it wasn’t.
I think this game’s biggest issue right now is product. It’s bad outside of main sets, I think the quality of side sets have been really meh. Which I believe is the main cause of the current LGS crisis. However trying to fix that is an mess all on to itself. Because it also involves the OCG as well. It’s complicated.
Not overall Yu-Gi-Oh but TCG. Still, many people attend to the big events and on the other side, many people saying are quitting the game (just recently Andres Torres announced he's stepping back from the game to go to Pokemon) so seems a 50/50 in this situation. It will indeed lose one spot as the big games (One Piece grew up a lot in Japan this year) but I don't have any hope in the company to change things for good.
It makes you wonder why they continue to produce lackluster sets/set structuring. Their answer, instead of addressing issues at the source, is to release more product (looking at rarity 2). Also the sets can be so bad in terms of rarity or reprint choices you cant help but wonder if the people in charge of this are just too out of touch. They are so bad you dont want to buy more than a pack or two.
When a product does really well Konami gets extremely greedy with the followup. The biggest issue with Rarity Collection 2 personally was how expensive it was to get a box. In the biggest local card shop in my area sold boxes of Rarity Collection 2 for $130. The person in the counter saw our reaction for how expensive it was and he explained (without us asking) that distributors were asking for a lot of money for Rarity Collection 2 and that they had to sell it for $130 to try to get the money back.
I don't attend locals anymore as a player, I'm always actively looking to sell my cards in any way possible. The game isn't fun anymore and I'd rather get rid of them all and find a new game to get into.
The quality of the cards is god awful. The high end cards look very poorly compared to vintage cards. I dont understand why the tcg cant source the same material as the ocg. They managed to reprint jump festa in almost the same quality as the original version in the ocg, but we are stuck with cheap toilet paper in the west
this was a decline for years. i quit right before the cough cuz of how expensive the game was then. the quality went bad as soon as they made the new super and ultra rare designs where the symbols and stuff was foiled. it def wasnt the same feel for sure and some were god awful flimsy. when u need infinite impermanence, ash, and friends i said fuk it. this game pays more back pack vending then playing the actual game.
They should just shutter the other branches and make them all into glorified warehouses and distribution places. Print everything in Japan and just export day and date. Yeah, the price will go up everywhere but Japan (though since they'd be printing in much larger quantities and therefore get better manufacturing deals, probably not as much as it could) but at least it'd be worth it. Or at the very least shutter the NA branch and print everything in Europe. But they're clearly not going to do that. That's where Speed Duel used to be done and it was very much not last time and basically seems like boxes of fakes as a result. It's like they had the cards half done in Europe and then brought them over here to finish by someone who had no idea what they were doing. Should've just cancelled the set if people producing Etsy fakes could produce something that looks and even smells more legit.
As someone who shifted from Yugioh to Lorcana, it made me realize Yugioh’s pitfalls right now at least TCG wise. 1. It’s too expensive to play meta. 2. If you play meta its generally the same three decks or sometimes just one completely dominant strategy. 3. The banlist makes investing hard because its only a matter of time before those decks get hit hard. 4. Shortprinting staples or highly desired cards causes both FOMO and/or complete turnoff of investiment, so either way the consumer loses. TBH, I’m more interested in historical formats since most are affordable. Despite the fact that Konami wants to do Time Wizard, there is no real support for it other than what local OTS decides.
Not quitting yugioh but for sure taking a break with the bois. We gonna try pokemon for the first time pretty refreshing that 150 bucks gets you 3 top tier decks lol thats like insane to me. I dont think yugioh is dying yet but like aint no way im buying fiendsmith. Hopefully after 2 banlist the meta isnt tier 0 anymore.
if ur looking to do pokemon. trickygym is a good twitch/youtuber. very informative and def has an influence on decks that see play. also GLC is a fun format.
I believe Yugioh has been in a state of increased negative reputation of the meta game for a few years now. This year would have been peak fatigue as soon as january, i think the rarity collection gave it a temporary boost in positive believings. But with these powersets out of the way, the problems are back in the focus and the fiendsmith engine is just the next stepping stone into an unhealthy game. I also believe that you are right. The game isn’t gonna die anytime now. But I think having a community with both broken trust and loyality, you will slowly see the players jumping ship and looking for other TCGs, Be it for better prizes, for healthier metagames, for increased senses of not feeling milked for money while buying product or just because there are better communities to play with (I mean lots of early yugioh players do have kids now and playing sth like pokemon or Lorcana with those children is probably much more rewarding than teaching them modern yugioh.) I hope those shifts come fast and numerous so Konami finally changes something and makes the game of modern yugioh a better place to be play cards, primairly in terms of accessibility, card prizes, transparency, balancing and product quality.
The sponsored channels need to talk about these issues or they aren’t going to be fixed. I appreciate your input John and everything you’ve said is correct. But more people need to say it
I don't think Yugioh will go anywhere. Its in that area like, Pokemon, Magic, it made it past the test. Some years it might be slow and products are meh, but its a staple card game. Pokemon during gen 2 and 3 had extremely low production runs because of interest, thats why the cards from that era are so highly priced. If Pokemon can make it through that, Yugioh can, Konami will come up with some way to make us interested. I think Rarity collection is going to stay around and come back for the 30th anniversary.
Part of that era and scarcity is also the Wizards and Nintendo falling out, no? Yu-Gi-Oh has had that similar moment too (UDE VS Konami). Pokemon is also THE top merch entity of all time. Yu-Gi-Oh is the lil bro, not the big bro. I do agree Konami will be working on things, and have Ws, but they need to get biking up that hill sooner than later
The players are the problem. I said it before, stop supporting a company that doesn’t support you. You have a fixing for shiny cardboard and games?! There are plenty others out there to satisfy besides yugioh. STOP PLAYING KONAMIS GAME. Oh and btw, day 410 of waiting for a new floow card🐧
Short prints hit hard in side sets. In a case of terminal revenge pulled 2 qscr's, 0 kurikara, 0 lotus King, 1 yubel, 1lara, and so on. Can post actual numbers but point being how you can get a case and not get a playset of each if not at least 2 of a couple because of minor variance blows my mind
The venders are hurting. The crazy amount of reprints on staples is insane. Im not fan of tear zero but it really happens in my eyes. Here in the tcg "players" got they wanted. Banning/limiting flodgates. That is the balance. They are so many outs to a card, even better versions of them. Nevertheless, if we can to keep a fair balnce in pricess of cards, increase the pulling ratio of the desire card(s). Let time take its course like it should be
It is entirely down to konami TCG’s greed. I’ve left the modern game entirely and only play time wizard now. Yes, I’m one of those boomers who thinks old Yugioh was more fun, but it’s the greed that was the real nail in the coffin for me. I could write a whole ass essay on how it’s so much worse now than it was back in the days that I love
I hope it keeps falling off, the more stores drop ygo product the better. The TCG products are an anti-consumer travesty and should not be bought at all by anyone. This is the only language Konami will listen to.
My last interest was building my dinomorphia dinos... yeah that was last year ago. I'll hold on to my cards and see if anyone will still be dueling when we're in our late 60s.
The game is already falling out of my locals market. People don't want to play modern. They'd rather play Edison. Yugioh has a great game nested under a decade of bad decisions and terrible game design and it shows when people are instantly attracted to past formats once they get a look at them while being repulsed by modern gameplay. Konami is wasting their greatest resource: nostalgia. DM boomers with money will look at a game they played as a kid, realize it's not for them, and fall off after making one purchase. A game that's actually playable would keep their deep pockets in for multiple purchases.
That’s the thing, when more locals die, you have less places to actually play, compete, and get product. New players are less likely to get into the game. There’s the large events, but why play the game if you’re only going to big events and not getting to play some sort of casual tournament every week or so? Locals are the heart of the game and without them, it’s not really the same
I feel like it would help immense - if we could get staple cards as example Ash Blossom as a ghost rare for getting into top 32, and then the higher you get 1 or 2 more cards + mat + booster as prizing. Basically staples/popular in a rarity, which is exclusive to topping in events and maybe a different each event for a format and then restart with (in my example) Ash in the next format. Also i would like a side set once a year, which is like a OCG set (1 card having 3 raritys - super/ultra or secret and starlight) and has much needed reprints. It sucks to see cards taking 2+ years for it to finally get a super rare print and be accessable. Competitive Yu-Gi-Oh just seems bad to me, because its totally not worth the money that people spend - if you are not a content creator or sponsored etc, even attending a event, which is not nearby you - doesnt seem worth it. Edit : Also imo Master Duel just is a waste of potential. I get it can be fun in the right meta, with right events but it could be so much bigger and better for the game of Yu-Gi-Oh. We should get old formats as permanent game modes (doesnt have to be ranked yet) and imo more solo stuff - lore or the anime stories. Maybe even TCG/OCG modes with BO3 and side decking. Doesnt help the banlists over the last calender year had less hits/unhits than the last TCG banlist. MD banlists always miss to adress something too.
Greed isn't killing it. A lack of a cultural footprint / larger franchise awareness is. Not having an Anime, Manga, and actual Video Games that aren't mobile games like they used to is hurting it's mass market appeal. We used to have merchandise like toys in regular retail stores all the way through GX but now it's basically nothing. This helps draw more people into the competitive TCG. It's now trying to function like MTG where it's just a TCG but that larger brand synergy akin to Pokémon is what made it blow up in the first place.
I agree completely side note you gotta organize that room bro I physically couldn’t watch that video, too much chaos to focus on what your saying I had to put my Phone down just to listen
Also a lot of people dont bring this up because they are literally too young to remember there is a timeline where Upper Deck Entertainment don't make counterfeit cards and get uprooted by Konami and rule the TCG market in the West with Yugioh, WoW TCG ehile the IP was white hot, and the lesser mentioned but deceptively important VERSUS TCG aka the Marvel vs. DC comic crossover card that STILL HAS PEOPLE PLAYING AND COLLECTING IT. But sadly that was a casuality of the Konami lawsuit just right before the Avengers movie came out which would have been HUGE for them. But sadly or thankfully depending on your opinion of UDE we don't live in that timeline.
I miss VS System, but I wish they'd been able to license more properties for smaller releases _ala_ Hellboy. TMNT/Mirage in general, Project Superpowers, Milestone, Invincible, City of Heroes, stuff like that would've been cool to get mini-releases for to spice up what characters and strategies could turn up. WOWTCG was fun too, though there's still some fan-curated content (same with Transformers and the Alpha Trion stuff) for people who still want to try new stuff.
I have a bit of an odd theory. I don't believe Yugioh is falling off in the sense that the game is done and dusted. However, I do think the TCG philosophy has changed quite a bit and has shifted to becoming more of a "premium" game. People pay a lot of money to compete and regardless of our feelings on the matter, there are few signs of that slowing down. TCG players, like gamblers, are impulsive spenders. This means they'll pay anything regardless of how rare a card is (thus the rarity scaling) which makes Konami a lot of money. Then there's where that money comes from. It's safe to assume that most sales probably come from online vendors these days who, in turn, resale. Secondly, large events do not require participation in locals. This makes a lot of money in a short period of time and they likely get a larger cut of the entry fees than locals provide them. What makes this so different compared to the OCG is the OCG is very locals centric and they either have to or choose to have more accessible rarities. It also helps that TCG markets are very business friendly with limited consumer protection regulations. Long story short, my theory is local and casual play are dying because Konami really doesn't need them to turn a profit. Large events still have huge turnouts regardless of crap prizing, resellers more than cover locals sales, Yugitubers are constantly promoting the product regardless of their content (that and their own income relies on Yu-Gi-Oh being successful), etc. What motivation does Konami really have to create a fair game when the unfair game makes the most money? On a final note (puts on tinfoil hat), Konami doesn't want to invest in businesses or events that do not directly promote the new product. I suspect part of the reason Europe lost YCSs was because they would always go "off script" and do something other than show off the new product.
The konami extreme greed is why the game isn’t number one. i know so many people who used to spend thousands on the game and quit because Konami’s predatory practice. Opening Boxes these days is the biggest scam ever especially compared to other TCG’s who actually give their players the same prints they have in japan card for card unlike konami who has a near ideal box card rarity distribution but in the tcg to get a good card they are short printed by the simple fact that they have 10 secret rare so good luck finding the good one and to get a QCR or Starlight you gotta buy many cases or pray and the prize they give players in laughable!
Ygo is dying has been a meme for some time but coming off the third straight 6+ month tier 0 deck (tear, kashtira, snake eye) im kinda just tired of the game tbh, the variety from toss through the brave/fiber days was very engaging
To quote the average YGO copium enjoyer "But the game is as accessible as ever!! You can build a tempai core for under $20! This is a great time for yugioh!" Idiots. Totally ignoring the fact that you need many staples to be competitive. Those idiots will even say hand traps are affordable rn. Im sorry boss, but common ash is $4 again. $12 for three cards is not cheap. Prosperity is $5, and again, $15 for a set is not cheap. Imperm is like $18 a playset, nibs are $10, etc. Cant forget the $15 for evenly matches and $15 for Dark Ruler No Mores, this goes on forever...And they just made an even better handtrap, thats, you guessed it, secret rare. You can build an entire MTG EDH deck out of cards that cost under $1 each. Many people at locals do, and they do fine. Like they win. And they dont win like people win in Yugioh, "oh he had nib, he had droll", no like they legit play well and win. Skill based game vs gambling money pit.
Only way to save it is by giving us more Dark Magician and Dark Paladin support. I foretold a prophecy that YGO was going to fall off if it did not base itself around the protagonist main archetype: DM.
This is why I stick with Floow. Ole' reliable. I literally don't have to spend $100s and every once in awhile spend a bit just to catch Max rarity Power Spells/Traps. Mulcharmy Purulia will be my next playset.
I gladly disagree yu-gi-oh is dying period. I played before rescue ace got into the meta to prepare for Lorcana and it was the best decision so far. Jump out of the train before its to late 😂
Idk if yugioh is dying, I will say that I’ve stopped playing…I’m sick of expensive meta decks and trying to play “keeping up with the Jones’s” every time a new set comes out……but that’s just me I hope yall keep playing and enjoying the game
Maybe stop reprinting everything that has max rarity in max rarity and print them in rarities that cost less, they also killed the collectors market with that crap too 😂😂 collectors aren't buying cards like they use to now
I really wonder if banlist really increases their profits by much. They force you to buy new product but alot of people just leave the game . Why not release majority of cards so other older good decks can compete against the top ! Every deck has a good and bad match up ,but they remove that balance by killing other decks. But i can understand the feeling of paying top dollar just to lose against 7 year old deck .
