Then and Now: How the Game Has Changed

[MyTomorrow77]

EDIT: BTW, I am so old school that any card I consider to be “newer” is anything released after the first generation of Yu-Gi-Oh (printed after 2004).

 

I dueled with Yu-Gi-Oh cards way back in the days of the first season of the first anime, when summoning a Blue-Eyes White Dragon essentially guaranteed you the win. After about a nine-year hiatus, I returned to the game to find, as I expected, many changed aspects. I’d like to share the experience, which has been similar to a emerging from a coma, with anyone willing to listen to an old-school duelist harken back to bygone days and put the game into an analysis. At the end of it all, I will share my opinion as to what I believe makes the game good and what makes it bad. I encourage all feedback, be it negative or positive.

 

Raw monster strength: When I first began back 15(!) years ago, monsters were glaringly weaker in ATK and DEF than later issued ones. Something like Ryu-Kishin Powered (1600/1200) was a half-decent card even though it had no effect. Tribute summoned monsters included doozies like Trent (1500/1800). Worse yet, there were fusion monsters (typically requiring three specific cards: Polymerization and the two fusion materials) whose attack didn’t exceed 1000.

 

I returned to the game to find generally stronger monsters. Jerry Beans Man, a level three, has an attack of 1750. Bunilla, a mere level one, has a defense of 2050. A monster such as Mad Lobster (1700/1000) is only level three. Jurrac Dino (1700/800) is also level three with the benefit of a card effect, brining me to my next point.

 

Monster effects: Most non-tribute monsters with effects were wimpy by traditional ATK or DEF measures. If not, then the monster had some negative effect (Boar Solider, Jirai Gumo, Giant Orc) that constrained it. Magician of Faith, Man-Eater Bug, Penguin Solider; all are good cards that be easily overpowered.  In addition, the monsters rarely associated with each other. The lack of archetypes made deck-building fun and challenging.

 

I suppose it’s appropriate to digress and insert my biggest grievance with the newer game here. The newer archetypes (and by “newer” I mean anything after the first generation of cards) complement each other all to easily. One card tells you to send one card from your deck to your Graveyard, and that card tells you to destroy or special summon something if it’s sent from the deck to the Graveyard, etc. etc. etc. It’s all too easy and makes the duel instead a race for the quickest to bombard their opponent with card effects. The Six Samurai, Blackwing, Shaddoll, and many other archetypes blow the first generation cards out of the water because of the forced cohesion. Even some traps and spells are entirely dedicated to one archetype. The real reason behind it is probably economics because an archetype means forcing you to buy more cards. Still, it is something that the game I grew up with could’ve done without. The limited archetypes in the first generation created a better game. I prefer the broad focus on an attribute or monster type

 

Back to my original point, effect monsters typically had ATK and/or DEF lower than 1000 (mostly since a lot of them had flip effects). I now find that just about every monster has an effect, which makes for a more interesting duel. These monsters can also be non-tribute summoned with decent stats. Bird of Roses gives you a quick monster boost along with a supportive 1800/1500 base. The list goes on for hundreds of cards, allowing infinite options to the player.

 

Summoning: Back in the day, 90% of monsters were summoned normally with or without tributes. Only a few cards allowed special summons (Monster Reborn, Call of the Haunted) and only a few monsters could be special summoned (Sinister Serpent, Dark Necrofear, Great Moth) and they were usually very strong. This still holds today, but there are many more monsters level four or below that can be special summoned, especially in conjunction with other monsters from their archetypes.  Other special summons were restricted to fusion or ritual summoning.

 

I was overwhelmed when I returned to find how many easily monsters could be summoned. I dueled people who summoned three or four monsters in a single turn thanks to monster effects and newer special summons. And there I was, setting my monsters one turn at a time. Needless to say, I didn’t last very long.

 

Since returning, three new types of monsters can be placed in the extra deck: Synchro, XYZ, and Pendulum. I still don’t understand Pendulum, so I’ll leave that alone for now. Of the other two, I like the Synchro creatures. It is essentially fusions done smoothly. Instead of specific monsters, you only need the ones that qualify for the summon. All without Polymerization. It is quick, simple, and can help turn the tables without being unfair (well, usually). My only quarrel with the Synchros is that it can be a little too easy to summon them because the Tuners can easily materialize.

 

 On the other hand there are XYZ monsters. These I don’t like. I’ve found that they tend to be overpowered because of their detachment effect. A monster detaches its material, and suddenly the player is able to use a one-shot nuke on the other to destroy monsters, spells/traps, etc. I am of course making a generalization since I am only vaguely familiar with XYZ and Synchro monsters, but I’ve found that Synchro monsters are generally more balanced.

 

Nuking: Speaking of which, many of the turn-the-tables cards (Raigeki, Monster Reborn, Change of Heart, Cyber Jar) are now either forbidden or limited. Until my return I was unaware that there were any forbidden cards, so I am not sure when that practice began. Yet I would be willing to bet that a majority was released in the first generation. We sort of needed these nukes to keep the opponent guessing, since the old school game mostly consisted mostly of normal summoning and/or setting a trap. At any moment, a Heavy Storm or Morphing Jar could appear and completely change everything.

 

I am glad that these cards have since been forbidden or limited (or that I at least became aware of it). If a card is truly going to change the game, it should be due to the combination of another card and a bit of luck. If not, then it should come with a heavy cost or difficult procurement. Some of the newer cards (Maiden with Eyes of Blue) still have this lingering nuke effect IMO, but it seems to have died down.

 

That’s it. You’ve reached the end. I commend anyone who read through this whole thing. If you’re someone who started dueling during Zexal or Arc-V, I hope this has been informative. Like anything, the newer game has its pros and cons. While I dislike the archetypes and XYZ monsters, I am glad to see that monsters have generally gotten stronger with more effects and that special summoning has been made more doable with Synchros.

 

Now that I've experienced both extremes of the game (very first days vs. present), I'd like to share what makes for an enjoyable game:

 

1) Eliminate nukes (see above).

2) If an archetype is designed to be powerful, design it such that getting it going in a duel is difficult and/or requires strategic thinking. Don't just give the duelist the ability to easily overwhelm an opponent. Banishing cards ought to be a rather final decision and should not easily be recovered with the help of other monsters in the archetype.

3) Likewise, special summoning ought to be challenging.

4) Near-indestrucible monsters (Obelisk, Yubel incarnates) should be forbidden in official play.

5) For the designers: consider incorporating the first generation of cards to keep the feel of the oldies. Obnoxious Celtic Guardian is a good start, as is devising new archetypes that use some of the old cards.

[Slinky]

The problem with your archetype argument.

 

is that Archetypes didn't exist pre-2004 except for the Gravekeepers, which was it. There was literally no other archetype that I remember.

[-Griffin]

So, yeah, a lot changed. Konami needed to sell more cards, so a few things happened:

 

Power Creep:

I don't think anyone denied that this happened, majorly, in Yugioh, and still continues too. New cards are better so players buy them. Including the base stats.

 

More Involved Effects:

This is actually a good thing. We moved from Normal Monsters and monsters with very dull, hard to make choices with effects, into effects that can give real choices sometimes, such as what to search or send to the Graveyard. At least in theory - most of the time these choices are fairly obvious because of:

 

Obvious Combos:

Less for the competitive players, Konami learned that if you put "you need <X> monsters to do this" on a card, people brought more packs to get those monsters and use their card. They made how to use these monsters easy so that the casual players want to get them to make the Decks, often without seeing the full archtype/support since they can see several of the obvious combos from just a few cards they pull.

 

Unfortunately, something that was a result of power creep and hurt the involved effects was:

 

Faster Game Pace:

One of the ways to make cards faster and achieve the power creep that, yes, Konami actually wants? Let you use your cards faster! Throw the monsters from your hand out faster, search the monsters in your Deck to your hand/field faster, and make the cool boss in your Extra Deck faster! It also appeals to a set of casual players who really don't care for the nuance of the game and just like the big flashy cards. This has eventually meant that you can throw pretty big monsters out on the first turn or so, and 'slow' cards, aka traps that you need to spend the time to set, are not worth using. This is a shame because Traps are the game's main built-in way to interact with the opponent and make the game interesting/not solitaire. 

 

Check my sig for the YDF, Yugioh Designer Format, which is a new set of Yugioh Cards (with a few existing ones) that tries to fix these problems and a few others. It's not going back to the silly state of useless normals and absurd game-winners of the first season, but it should be an enjoyable format without the TCG's current power-creep, pace, and general lack of interaction. 

[Sleepy]

Nice analysis, I mean what we usually get are people that glorify the oldest times or people that just bash everything new without deeming it as having any redeemable qualities.

And to be honest, as someone that was absent for so long from a point so early to this huge extreme, it could be perfectly acceptable for you to be shocked about how different it is. 

 

I really don't like the power of the meta, though to be honest I dislike the bast majority of the metas of all times in Yugioh as done during their prime times. I can recognize several of those having strategic values that more held-back versions wouldn't have, but it isn't my thing.

 

The mechanics of Synchro and Xyz, can technically (from their core concepts) be made to be equally good. What you witnessed there was the aging of the game. Synchro era came out from 2008 to 2011, and Xyz era came from 2011 to 2013. That's how much the game itself power-creeped. If they had come in the opposite order, I think it'd still apply to disliking more the newer one's power average. It is mostly the speed of their Main Decks that break many of these though, more so than the Extra Deck cards themselves. That said, Xyz's Summoning concept is more generic so they have that going for it, but at the same time it also is limited to matching Levels so Synchros are more flexible.

 

 

Hmm I'll now talk about one of the aspects in the modern game I find more glaring and annoying, which comes hand in hand with the speed and power increase the game has undergone: The complexity scale.

 

 

Back in the day, your average play was to Summon/Set a monster and throw 1, maybe 2 (rarely) Spell/Trap Cards face-down and/or activate maybe 1, too. Monsters often had no effect at all, and card effects in general could often just be one-liners or be non-applicable over half the time. It was maybe a little bit too simple. Though it has gotten better over the years, to a point at least. My point here is that the turns were slow and blunt. The strategies could be looked at from a mile away and whenever a player didn't know about a card, it didn't really take much time to ask to read it and get an idea of how it played out in X deck.

 

 

 

There have been decks nowadays that abuse on complexity. A fairly recent example would be Dragon Rulers. My experience playing against them for the first time was terrible. I felt bad about having to ask for each card to read and take long-ish because of trying to keep a tracking record of what they are doing (they can only use 1 out of 3 effects per turn each and they involve triggering off each other and searching and adding and Summoning extra stuff as they do... sometimes even the owner of them would screw up and conduct the same dragon's effect twice in that turn, and they had the baby versions that allowed players to be all like "no you aren't putting attention enough, I used the baby, not the big dragon's effect here so I still have that use"). Not to mention the era we are in for the game where you need to search and Summon 2+ of these per turn to make an offensive play, so you can't really put the pieces together from the first tries against some of these decks.

 

In the shoes of a casual new-comer trying to learn over the march, that is a huge mess. I also recently lost a game to Noble Knights because of my own incompetence: Basically, I saw this Xyz monster with like 8 lines of text, equipped with 5 Noble Arms Equip Spells with similar or bigger texts each, and the YGOPro gave me like 3 minutes to read and understand all of that plus make my reaction and other actions. It is a pain.

 

Yes I can pretty openly admit that this reeks of "you should read the cards more carefully, it was your own fault and you shouldn't be blaming the game for this", but I still think it is stupid ly high in complexity at times, even if people can jump in and claim they can understand the whole scenario immediately. 

It is not a bad thing at all that players go study other decks to learn how to deal with them, but it seems like it is pretty much the norm that you need to study them in order to play against them at all. Am I making sense here?

[Just Crouton]

I wouldn't have as much of an issue with the ridiculous power creep if the game wasn't just archetypes.

 

Deckbuilding is really fun, but being given a small pool of cards that directly interact with each other and filling it with staples to make it 40 is boring.

 

Archetypes are boring, and the lazy artwork and names make them even less appealing. I groan when I hear about the new "Dinner Plates" or the "Soap Bars" and their obligatory Extra Deck bosses.

 

Konami should release a pool of generic power cards they want us to buy, then let players determine how they'll be used in the meta.

[MyTomorrow77]

So, yeah, a lot changed. Konami needed to sell more cards, so a few things happened:

 

…...

 

Faster Game Pace:

One of the ways to make cards faster and achieve the power creep that, yes, Konami actually wants? Let you use your cards faster! Throw the monsters from your hand out faster, search the monsters in your Deck to your hand/field faster, and make the cool boss in your Extra Deck faster! It also appeals to a set of casual players who really don't care for the nuance of the game and just like the big flashy cards. This has eventually meant that you can throw pretty big monsters out on the first turn or so, and 'slow' cards, aka traps that you need to spend the time to set, are not worth using. This is a shame because Traps are the game's main built-in way to interact with the opponent and make the game interesting/not solitaire. 

 

 

 

There have been decks nowadays that abuse on complexity. A fairly recent example would be Dragon Rulers. My experience playing against them for the first time was terrible. I felt bad about having to ask for each card to read and take long-ish because of trying to keep a tracking record of what they are doing (they can only use 1 out of 3 effects per turn each and they involve triggering off each other and searching and adding and Summoning extra stuff as they do... sometimes even the owner of them would screw up and conduct the same dragon's effect twice in that turn, and they had the baby versions that allowed players to be all like "no you aren't putting attention enough, I used the baby, not the big dragon's effect here so I still have that use"). Not to mention the era we are in for the game where you need to search and Summon 2+ of these per turn to make an offensive play, so you can't really put the pieces together from the first tries against some of these decks.

 

In the shoes of a casual new-comer trying to learn over the march, that is a huge mess. I also recently lost a game to Noble Knights because of my own incompetence: Basically, I saw this Xyz monster with like 8 lines of text, equipped with 5 Noble Arms Equip Spells with similar or bigger texts each, and the YGOPro gave me like 3 minutes to read and understand all of that plus make my reaction and other actions. It is a pain.

 

Yes I can pretty openly admit that this reeks of "you should read the cards more carefully, it was your own fault and you shouldn't be blaming the game for this", but I still think it is stupid ly high in complexity at times, even if people can jump in and claim they can understand the whole scenario immediately. 

It is not a bad thing at all that players go study other decks to learn how to deal with them, but it seems like it is pretty much the norm that you need to study them in order to play against them at all. Am I making sense here?

 

Both great points, and much better ways of putting into words my issue with the archetypes. I have no problem with the idea of monsters designed to cooperate. Some of them are just too frustrating either with effects or even the length of the text. I too have been dominated by card text. I recently dueled a Shaddoll deck and lost miserably simply because I gave up half way through in trying to read the individual texts. My opponent moved too swiftly and assumed I was keeping up (or probably just wanted to win). It was like reading a Terms and Agreement section. After a while you lose track of what's happening and just sort of go with it.

 

As Griffin pointed out, some of it has to do with getting the flashy cards out quickly. This is fine, but making it too easy sorta ruins the strategy of the game. If a duelist summons something with at the drop of a hat and defeats me, I can't say I'm that impressed.

 

I really hate honing in on this one aspect because I've enjoyed just about everything else of the newer game (well, maybe not XYZ). Yet I've found that my most enjoyable duels since returning have been those that don't involve archetypes. I think Konami did a good job with the Cloudian and Chronomoly archetypes because they have their uses without overpowering the opponent. Plus the decks require more cards to get them going. Then you have something like Elemental HERO, where you can dedicate an entire deck to the archetype and easily defeat someone who isn't using something as weighty.

[-Griffin]

I actually like XYZ, purely as a concept - it's a cool way that a Deck can use a tough boss monster, while it takes setup to get out, but doesn't clog the hand and lead to people losing because they can't even play cards. My problem is that the XYZ released jumped right on the power creep wagon and were simply too good: disproportionate power for their ease-of-summoning compared to other bosses which ran the risk of clogging your hand, and they've been made consistently easier and easier to summon through new cards. 

[heraldry_lord]

I wouldn't have as much of an issue with the ridiculous power creep if the game wasn't just archetypes.

 

Deckbuilding is really fun, but being given a small pool of cards that directly interact with each other and filling it with staples to make it 40 is boring.

 

Archetypes are boring, and the lazy artwork and names make them even less appealing. I groan when I hear about the new "Dinner Plates" or the "Soap Bars" and their obligatory Extra Deck bosses.

 

Konami should release a pool of generic power cards they want us to buy, then let players determine how they'll be used in the meta.

 

Do you really believe the game would be "better" if it was just generic cards being printed?  Do you also really believe that your descriptions of archetypes here are attributable to all archetypes in the game?  I have no issue with more generic support, but I find archetype hate naive at best.

 

I personally do not find Shaddolls, Infernoids, Spellbooks, Crystal Beasts or Fire Fist "boring" due to their playstyles, which is a component of archetype design you haven't actually addressed (you've only pointed at the pre-made nature of the decks, and their art and names; also, I wonder what you mean by their names being "lazy").  Also, some archetypes, such as Infernoids, actively use a sizable number of generic non-staple cards to help them.

[Just Crouton]

Do you really believe the game would be "better" if it was just generic cards being printed?  Do you also really believe that your descriptions of archetypes here are attributable to all archetypes in the game?  I have no issue with more generic support, but I find archetype hate naive at best.

 

I personally do not find Shaddolls, Infernoids, Spellbooks, Crystal Beasts or Fire Fist "boring" due to their playstyles, which is a component of archetype design you haven't actually addressed (you've only pointed at the pre-made nature of the decks, and their art and names; also, I wonder what you mean by their names being "lazy").  Also, some archetypes, such as Infernoids, actively use a sizable number of generic non-staple cards to help them.

 

@First bolded: Yes. It encourages players to think more in the deckbuilding process, and figure out what cards work together, and what doesn't.

 

It makes deckbuilding, an essential part of every card game, more engaging than looking at a short list of cards with identical names, cut the obvious bad ones, run the good ones at 3, and fill the rest with staples.

 

@Second bolded: Because those are my main issues with archetypes, and my criticisms about the latter were directed at aesthetics?

 

I call the names lazy because they don't do much to give the monsters individual identities, instead calling them "Archetype Steve" and "Super Archetype Bob." Toons and Spirits were great by making the archetype names into sub-types, which allowed the designers to give them names to make themselves their own characters. But, Konami is bad and didn't make it so with everything else. All the HERO monsters would be more colorful with actual superhero names instead of "[HERO affiliation] Crappy superhero name."

[heraldry_lord]

@First bolded: Yes. It encourages players to think more in the deckbuilding process, and figure out what cards work together, and what doesn't.

 

It makes deckbuilding, an essential part of every card game, more engaging than looking at a short list of cards with identical names, cut the obvious bad ones, run the good ones at 3, and fill the rest with staples.

 

@Second bolded: Because those are my main issues with archetypes, and my criticisms about the latter were directed at aesthetics?

 

I call the names lazy because they don't do much to give the monsters individual identities, instead calling them "Archetype Steve" and "Super Archetype Bob." Toons and Spirits were great by making the archetype names into sub-types, which allowed the designers to give them names to make themselves their own characters. But, Konami is bad and didn't make it so with everything else. All the HERO monsters would be more colorful with actual superhero names instead of "[HERO affiliation] Crappy superhero name."

 

Except that in the past, when archetypes were less prevalent, there was often one best deck that dominated the format; furthermore, archetypes do not prevent deckbuilding so long as they aren't ultra-insular.  T.G. Stun is one of my favourite decks, and the T.G. archetype is a major part of the deck, but it isn't purely a T.G. deck.  Lightsworns have been used as techs or as an engine in a number of decks in the game's history, as well as Destiny HEROs + Stratos.  Infernoids rely heavily on early-to-mid game Reasoning/Monster Gate/Needlebug Nest, and the deck uses Lightsworns and Card Trooper, and can even tech Blaster, but Infernoids are still the main focus of the deck. 

 

Aside from that, archetypes do not inherently prevent monsters from having separate identities either; everyone knows Fire Fist Bear individually, for instance.  I do agree that the naming schemes could be better, and sub-Types are under-utilized as a way of grouping monsters together.

 

What I'm getting at is that archetypes aren't this evil golem that prevents deckbuilding and "creativity" from ever happening; this can only apply when the archetypes work within themselves and ONLY within themselves, as Qliphorts are essentially designed to do.  Furthermore, I emphasized your lack of focus on the playstyle and gameplay aspect of the archetypes, because that's a major reason people play them.  Finally, even insular archetypes can involve some measure of deckbuilding skill; without any prior reference or suggestions, I can guarantee that few would be able to construct a "proper" Crystal Beast deck without a great amount of trial and error.