Is Vanity's Emptiness good for the game?

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

 

Neither player can Special Summon monsters. If a card is sent from the Deck or the field to your Graveyard: Destroy this card.

 

Discuss whether this card's existence creates a healthier game state, or whether it hurts it. Looking at this card from a design and balance perspective is difficult, due to the fact that many players either love or hate this card specifically, but hopefully we can manage a civil discussion.

[~Faytl~]

This card can be healthy for the meta, I just don't get why everyone and their mother is running it. Really Yosenju seem to be able to use it best, seems awkward in a lot of the decks I see it in.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

This card can be healthy for the meta, I just don't get why everyone and their mother is running it. Really Yosenju seem to be able to use it best, seems awkward in a lot of the decks I see it in.

 

The thing is, it is really quite easy to get rid of your own Vanity's, especially in certain decks. And since chaining this to opponent's effects that special summon cause them to minus, this is a very strong answer to many decks that are around right now.

[Lonk]

Helpoemer no!

 

People justify Vanity as being a Floodgate, but I don't think Floodgates are good for the game in general.  All what Floodgate cards do is say to your opponent that they cannot play.  That is boring, and that is just stupid.  Single-turn Floodgates are better for the game since it is the healthy amount of stopping your opponent from making a game-changing advance but still allows your opponent the ability to play.  Meanwhile, cards like Skill Drain, Vanity's Emptiness and Mistake last indefinitely and are merely there to punish your opponent for just playing.

[ihop]

Actually, I think Vanity's being good is often a result of the game being bad, as with a lot of floodgates like that. It's not really that great in a metagame where decks are fairly pedestrian and games are more control-based and grindy, which I consider to be a better metagame than one where most decks just throw out as many big monsters as they can every turn and hope they can either make an unbreakable field of monsters or simply win before the opponent has a chance to respond. The format atm is pretty lame, and the last time Vanity's was as big as this, Dragon Ruler format, the format IMO was just as lame. Obviously, this is heavily opinion based and it depends what you consider to be an "ideal" metagame, but that's just my opinion. Is Vanity's responsible for a bad metagame? No. Does a bad metagame lead to more Vanity's? Often, yes.

 

I really hate floodgates too, but I don't consider this to be as much of a floodgate as it's really only a temporary solution. I think it's more just a power trap as it can stop your opponent SSing for a turn or two, consolidate good fields and make itself into a +0 if you chain it. I wouldn't compare this to stuff like Mistake, Skill Drain, Decree, Royal Oppression (god forbid)

 

edit: ouch, I actually hurt my wrist making this post as I was typing in a really awkward position. ;-;

[newhat]

It hurts faster Decks more than slower ones. It is not like Macro Cosmos where it cripples several Decks while a handful just ignore the drawback (pretty much just Yosen), or like Skill Drain where they benefit from it.

 

But it's problematic for the same reason as Royal Oppression: Once you've made your plays, you can flip it up and just sit on it, and while it has a weakness, you can exploit it yourself to shut it off and make a game-ending play.

[Trebuchet MS]

... Once you've made your plays, you can flip it up and just sit on it, and while it has a weakness, you can exploit it yourself to shut it off and make a game-ending play.

And this is an inherent flaw afflicting the many floodgate cards in the game.

[evilfusion]

The problem I see with this card is that a lot of Decks function heavily with at least one Special Summon, whether it be from the hand, Graveyard, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Pendulum. Emptiness shuts them all down. Some Decks don't need the SS as badly, or have alternative options, like Qliphorts and Skill Drain, where a Normal Summon grants them 2800 beaters. Without Special Summons, most Decks can't match that brute strength, and Pendulums go to the Extra Deck and won't kill this.

 

The issue I have is this card doesn't PUNISH players for making high-risk or high-investment plays, the way Torrential Tribute does to some degree. It has its downsides of self-destructing fairly easily, and locking you down, too, but it can essentially cut your opponent's turn short if they don't have an immediate answer, and if you're remotely in an advantageous position, this almost outright wins because it limits your opponent to the point where they can't fight back.

 

Since it's an almost unavoidable fact that Yu-Gi-Oh has evolved to a point where Special Summons are critical, cards that shut down that mechanic just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't even have excessive hate against this card, but I don't think cards like this should be roaming around. Unlike Oppression, this doesn't let you gain card advantage (since Oppression destroyed SSed monsters), but it's still a card that doesn't hurt the user while it's Set.

 

If Emptiness didn't allow you to control SSed monsters, it might be a little more fair, but even then, I suspect Qlips would still have their Skill Drain BS.

[Toffee.]

You know whats funny? This card would be totally fair if it said you could only activate it if you didn't control any Special Summoned monsters.
....
Or at least, for a start.

[Sleepy]

It is funny how when I play with meta decks, this card can be essential to stop important pushes and then I can always get rid of it to make my own pushes if needed.

Then I play casually with slower decks with friends, and this card suffers because it needs to make that 1 turn delay count, otherwise if your deck can't make it count with an OTK or any really powerful push, the card falls in favor of the old removal disruption like Torrential, Bottomless, Warning, or Black Horn.

 

I like the thought and strategy required for some of the decks' designs nowadays, but something I've been disliking about the format is that it seems to be along the lines of "lock, OTK, or have a single turn push powerful enough to prevent any bouncing back ever". If only decks gave a little more turns to play and weren't so heavily reliant on Special Summon that they'd get locked out from their strategy by this card (well, mainly Nekroz get that weakness).

 

I don't think the card is TOO bad, but it looks like the design of the format was outright thought out to make this card big.... 

[Delibirb]

The card isn't /good/ for the game, necessarily, but it isn't /bad/ for it either. It's power is format dependent, but it in and of itself does not define formats.