Theoretical Tribute Summoning Rules Changes

[Mysty]

With Synchros, Xyz, and the upcoming Link mechanic, trading monsters on your field for stronger monsters is easier and faster than ever, and as such, Tribute Summoning has been left mostly in this dust. The Extra Monster Zone rules changes may help, but I think Tribute Summoning may need a couple more pushes to be viable again:

1. Tribute Summons/Sets are additional Normal Summons/Sets, i.e. they do not count as your 1 Normal Summon/Set per turn.
2. Tribute Summoned monsters can be used as two Tributes for a Tribute Summon.

My explanation for each change:
1. I did consider having Tribute Summons/Sets being treated as Special Summons instead, but that created problems with the Egyptian Gods (particularly The Winged Dragon of Ra, which would be unsummonable). This implementation also still allows Tribute Summons to get around Special Summon locks, which might be one of their only redeeming qualities right now.
2. I always found it strange how this wasn't part of the rules already, even from the beginning. With this rule, they could ladder like Synchros and Links do.
 

Discuss if these rules have any merit and if they would have any impact on gameplay, especially with the upcoming Extra Monster Zone rules.

[Snatch Steal]

Monarchs though

Not only is Yugioh trying to make the game slower, but monarchs are already useable and they only benefit from a slower format. This would make them much more powerful and a dominating force in the meta. I doubt Konami would do this.

[evilfusion]

Yeah...allowing for Tribute Summons to be an additional Normal Summon would actually be TOO good, not only because of Monarchs, but also because SSing is already ridiculously commonplace, so assembling Tribute fodder is not that difficult, and a number of powerful cards already benefit from using a Normal Summon. This also could lead to Vanity's Fiend and such being even more dangerous, because you'd be able to create an SS lock without needing to SS anything yourself first.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Except one of the strongest decks uses tribute summoning, and does just funking fine with the mechanic as is.

 

Tribute summoning, like normal monsters, is a naturally weaker mechanic, but through various aspects of card design, has become incredibly relevant.

 

These changes would snap true kings in half, while also making techs like Spell Canceller, Vanity's Fiend, Angel O7, Tyrant Neptune, Gigaplant, and more utterly insane. Honestly, the list can go on and on.

 

As this point, tribute summoning still happens, and when it happens,it is damn worth the investment of card advantage and tempo.

[Sleepy]

This is like the third time recently when I've seen a theory thread not be posted at the theory section. Just saying.

 

As for the actual subject, I don't think further pushes are necessarily.. well... necessary, to improve upon the viability of the mechanic.

It'd be needed if you wanted to boost a considerable number of cards that already exist, but looking forward the mechanic has become a little better over time.

Monarchs are THE Tribute monsters for excellence, Qliphs are Tribute Summon based, anti meta cards like Vanity/Majesty's monsters or Spell Canceller are tech-worthy. It isn't an incredibly big amount and they do set the bar far beyond most other Tribute Summonable monsters in the game, but they are gaining an edge nonetheless.

 

Nowadays we get the limitation of all Extra Deck summons and the game is much more prolific at Special Summoning fodder pieces than it used to be. It is easier to randomly throw a monster into more decks for Tribute Summoning it than it is for Pendulum Summoning it so it is not that far behind in concept.

 

Actually, I remember a hilarious deck that won a locals at the beginning of the Pendulum era because Shaddolls were the top tier and some guy decided his deck would focus around Tribute Summoning Blue-Eyes white Dragon. The result was never making Shaddoll's fusioning Spell Cards live for toolboxing its members and monsters not being able to reach its ATK or affect it for not being a Special Summon. This is an amusing example of how formats might shape up in a way that accidentally give more of an edge to something people aren't expected to use.

 

Fusions themselves aren't that much more of a viable mechanic than Rituals are if we look at the core mechanic, so just like with Fusions, the game mostly just needs proper support for the action.

[Babymon]

Yu-Gi-Oh players now lack any real skill in this game. Everything now is net deck and SPAM BIG MONSTERS with little brain power or knowing what cards do.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Yu-Gi-Oh players now lack any real skill in this game. Everything now is net deck and SPAM BIG MONSTERS with little brain power or knowing what cards do.

Using a worse deck doesn't make you a better player.

[TF2_The_Scout]

Yu-Gi-Oh players now lack any real skill in this game. Everything now is net deck and SPAM BIG MONSTERS with little brain power or knowing what cards do.

And this didn't happen in the GX era? I fail to see your point.

 

Anyway, the idea of giving tribute summons a buff seems nice and all, but Monarchs are a good deck already, so giving them even more of a buff by giving them a normal summon then an immediate tribute summon just seems ridiculous. Though, I do like the idea of tribute summoned monsters counting as 2 tributes.

[Babymon]

Using a worse deck doesn't make you a better player.

Actually it does because you have to work harder to win and care about resources as appose to lol I'm just going to recycle all my cards because they have mutli effect and can trigger off in grave too.

[Mysty]

My apologies, Sleepy. If it serves as any defense, I was unaware that there was a theory section on these forums. I humbly request that this thread gets moved.

Or locked. Honestly, it looks like the rest of the thread will become a spam fest of an unrelated topic. Additionally, it seems a general consensus has been reached:
• Konami has made very powerful cards that highly reward the difficulty, dedication, and loss of card advantage required for a Tribute Summon in the form of True Kings, Monarchs, and Tribute Summonable floodgates.
• Even with the Extra Monster Zone mechanics, players can still spam main deck monsters just fine, which would create a lot of tributes for those Tribute Summoned monsters.
• A lot of Special Summon chains start with a normal summon, which prohibits Tribute Summons that turn.

Most of these complaints only address the first change, though, so it could be possible that the conversation could continue on the merits of discussing the second point. However, given that nobody has particularly addressed the second point at all, I'm guessing it's because it wouldn't be a viable topic.

EDIT: Didn't see MetalSonic's post until after I posted - I'll give credit in that he did address the second point so much as agreeing with it, although that isn't quite much of a discussion.

[Babymon]

And this didn't happen in the GX era? I fail to see your point.

 

Anyway, the idea of giving tribute summons a buff seems nice and all, but Monarchs are a good deck already, so giving them even more of a buff by giving them a normal summon then an immediate tribute summon just seems ridiculous. Though, I do like the idea of tribute summoned monsters counting as 2 tributes.

 

In the GX era and prior we didn't have cards being printed with 3-4 different effects which punish players for getting rid of them. Now in the game we have cards that have multi effects and when a player does get rid of them they trigger off when removing the field. Essentially, not causing any penalty for loss and rewarding players with resource compensation. This has allowed players to duel reckless and waste their entire hand because even if your opponent say field wipes your field or pops your spell you will not feel any net loss (maybe a -1 if lucky) because you get compensated. This has resulted in the player base just spam spam spam, set up field without a care in the world and then do it over when their field gets hit.

 

In short there is no penalty for dueling recklessly in the game anymore due to cards having multi effects being activated when they leave the field.

[~~~~]

well the counting as two tributes thing would be stupid because we already have the Mega Monarch's effects that do that for you.

[~~~~]

In the GX era and prior we didn't have cards being printed with 3-4 different effects which punish players for getting rid of them. Now in the game we have cards that have multi effects and when a player does get rid of them they trigger off when removing the field. Essentially, not causing any penalty for loss and rewarding players with resource compensation. This has aloud players to duel reckless and waste their entire hand because even if your opponent say field wipes your field or pops your spell you will not feel any net loss (maybe a -1 if lucky) because you get compensated. This has resulted in the player base just spam spam spam, set up field without a care in the world and then do it over when their field gets hit.

 

In short there is no penalty for dueling recklessly in the game anymore due to cards having multi effects being activated when they leave the field.

In my paleozoics, resource control is very important. It's very easy for me to run out of Paleozoic traps in the grave to summon as monsters, especially early or late game. It's even easier to run out of actual traps to activate to get the summons off. And cards like Raigeki and Dark Hole are basically an autowin against me mid to late game, once most of my traps have become monsters. I don't see how my opponent topdecking Raigeki makes them any more skilled that I am just because I lost to it.

[Babymon]

In my paleozoics, resource control is very important. It's very easy for me to run out of Paleozoic traps in the grave to summon as monsters, especially early or late game. It's even easier to run out of actual traps to activate to get the summons off. And cards like Raigeki and Dark Hole are basically an autowin against me mid to late game, once most of my traps have become monsters. I don't see how my opponent topdecking Raigeki makes them any more skilled that I am just because I lost to it.

 

Sorry but i've dueled against those decks and usually they are very easily able to gain back their hand and resources thanks to card of demise and some of the trap cards that lets you draw 2 from that archetype. Even in decks with lot of resources to taking out backrows that deck can easily slip through and get off their effects even after being targeted for destruction.

[~~~~]

Sorry but i've dueled against those decks and usually they are very easily able to gain back their hand and resources thanks to card of demise and some of the trap cards that lets you draw 2 from that archetype. Even in decks with lot of resources to taking out backrows that deck can easily slip through and get off their effects even after being targeted for destruction.

I don't run Card of Demise, it costs too much in IRL money.

[Blake]

itt muh pet decks

 

Like, Tribute Summoning isn't bad. It's a mechanic you design around for it to be relevant. Hell, think about this:

 

Metalfoe: Fusion and Pendulum

Crystron: Synchro

Zoodiac: Xyz

True Draco: Tribute

True King: Special Summon (Infernoids show this is also considered a method, though they are largely locked to SS only)

 

(Shinobird doubled as Ritual and spirit support, technically)

 

If anything, you should have your eyes on the fact that they did acknowledge it as a "summoning method". Just like every sub-type got support (Normal, Union, Gemini, Spirit, and Toons), every summoning method has, as well.

 

They're not going to abandon it when they're slowly but surely working out how to make it more workable. Boohoo, power creep hurts old things that weren't well executed anyway, move on. Monarchs and True Dracoshoe a desire to work on it.

 

And that's ignoring how Tributie Summoning has been relevant to a lot of unexpected decks, like Dragon Rulers.

[notcleverusername]

Actually it does because you have to work harder to win and care about resources as appose to lol I'm just going to recycle all my cards because they have mutli effect and can trigger off in grave too.

If you think that's all meta decks do it testifies to your lack of skill X)

Slightly more seriously, but still somewhat facetiously because the Casual Superiority Mindset is far more cancerous than any tier 0, while using worse decks does help expand avenues of thought and thus can "increase skill" or w/e, the same goes with using an actually good deck that you are unfamiliar with anyways. Probably moreso in many cases because good decks typically have more options in how they can be built and played that test your ability to optimize and improvise better.

 

In the GX era and prior we didn't have cards being printed with 3-4 different effects which punish players for getting rid of them. Now in the game we have cards that have multi effects and when a player does get rid of them they trigger off when removing the field. Essentially, not causing any penalty for loss and rewarding players with resource compensation. This has allowed players to duel reckless and waste their entire hand because even if your opponent say field wipes your field or pops your spell you will not feel any net loss (maybe a -1 if lucky) because you get compensated. This has resulted in the player base just spam spam spam, set up field without a care in the world and then do it over when their field gets hit.

 

In short there is no penalty for dueling recklessly in the game anymore due to cards having multi effects being activated when they leave the field.

We didn't have 3-4 different effects, we just had things with 1 really borken effect, like Dimension Fusion :)))

Or EHERO Shining/Abs Zero probs, which did in fact punish players for getting rid of them.

Go and actually learn something about the game instead of jabroniing all the time. I get that jabroniing is the real reason YGO players still hang around, but surely you can do more than that

[notcleverusername]

Ah, forgot to comment on the original topic.

 

Lesseeeeee

 

I have some thoughts on it but since I just woke up and haven't eaten I'll condense it basically to--

There's lotsa different ways to buff Tribute Summons without involving the mechanic, and every iteration explores some method of it.

Most Tribute Summon decks fall into the inherent problem of being a 2-part deck (Tribute fodder and Tribute Summons) which are just inherently less consistent than 1-part decks (can explain more later if necessary) but one possible development that's still been relatively unexplored is turning a Tribute Summon deck into 1-part (the Tribute fodder and Tribute Summons are the same monster, such as what Red Layer helped achieve).

 

Monarchs have already explored quite a few methods, between Treeborn method, using opp's monsters as Tribute, Quick Tribute Summon, and lock-style to "equalize minuses" etc and the True Draco method is quite interesting

 

As far as it goes worrying about Tribute Summon relatively to other mechanics is typically fruitless because it's not necessarily mechanic vs other mechanics more than it is decks Kioanm creates vs decks Koanmi doesn't create. It's more about quantity than quality, basically, and that's determined directly by Kanomi whereas quality can be affected to some extent by crazy techs and w/e

[~~~~]

turning a Tribute Summon deck into 1-part (the Tribute fodder and Tribute Summons are the same monster, such as what Red Layer helped achieve).

I know that for the most part what they did weren't technically Tribute Summons, but I feel like Hieratics did this 

[notcleverusername]

I know that for the most part what they did weren't technically Tribute Summons, but I feel like Hieratics did this 

Hieratics did explore it as well, but it's still pretty basic and for the most part they were also structured as a 2-part (Teffy/Eset vs Nebthet/Su)

I've also considered something like Nekroz, where you would use in-hand effects for consistency/fodder, for a CAConcept.

[Sleepy]

Sorry but i've dueled against those decks and usually they are very easily able to gain back their hand and resources thanks to card of demise and some of the trap cards that lets you draw 2 from that archetype. Even in decks with lot of resources to taking out backrows that deck can easily slip through and get off their effects even after being targeted for destruction.

 

 

Regarding all your posts in this thread, I personally have my own sweet spot for some GX era themes as well as other older and by nowadays' standards also weaker decks.

However, one should not let personal preference get in the way of being objective and fair to the game. This game has existed for a few decades now and the power, complexity, and speed in cards and decks varies over time. The best way to know if something is really bad on a skill-based argument, you have to look at the rest of the competitive decks in that format and search for its natural prey and natural predators and how it plays around them, or if you think that's too much work, at the very least try to picture how the deck could work against another copy of itself.

 

You will never have a truly fair judgment by comparing the oldest and most outdated strategies with the newest. They belong to such different times they might as well be part of different games. Goat Control wasn't built to withstand Nekroz or Dragon Rulers. It goes both ways though, so by the same coin one can't just dismiss older decks and their formats just because they are outdated. If one wants to find out its true charm and skill mindset, they have to be observed in their habitat (their respective format).

 

If a deck is tested in the ways I mentioned and the winner is the one that wins does so due to insane first turn setup or OTKs/FTKs, and there is no other deck that really has a consistent out for it, then yes that is a detrimental format and you'd be right, but if you instead discover the interactions and choices of a deck you previously hated, and it turns out you can't easily win/lose in a game vs other format options (or itself), then it doesn't matter that it powercreeped tons of other decks in the older versions of the game, because it still would take skill. It'd still feel rewarding enough to win and not be guaranteed due to other decks of its time giving it a hard time legit. This applies to any one format you choose.

 

Many players just like use the "it takes no skill" card when referring to newer decks, without really analyzing it. It is a blanket statement that over-generalizes things in an unfair way.

I repeat I also like the pace of the GX and up to 5Ds era best myself, as much as the card-making was more narrow and I didn't like how restricted its support many times was, but I don't need to call the game past that trash just because I don't like it. It is still successful for a reason so it is worth a shot to look into it and who knows? Maybe you might end up liking it in its own way. It doesn't have to replace your liking other eras of the game.