yugioh A guide to making custom archetypes

[Surge77754]

When thinking of a name for your archetype once you have figured out its game plan (whether it be by movement of the player), try to avoid names that sound generic such as "Elemental", "Lost", "Night" because there are existing cards with those names.  Instead,  check to see that your name does not come into conflict with existing yugioh cards.  If the search returns no results, that name can be used. 

 

 

[Surge77754]

Alright, so Cyborg, Magical Knight and High Dragon are newly released monster Types that are released on DuelingBook which are Rush Duel Exclusive. Even so, it doesn't stop you from experimenting with these archetypes in the TCG. Some custom card servers will allow these archetypes into the TCG. 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

Keep in mind, "what do you want your archetype to do in terms of hand flow" is the key point to making a custom archetype.  Look at Witchcrafters, Virtual World, Code Talkers, as a guide.  And if you want trouble with designing something with Counters, look at Alien and Venom.  Ask yourself, "how do you want your counters to work?"

It is good for an archetype to have a mixture of going 1st and 2nd cards so that it can adapt to the opponent.  But keep it under control, as you don't want to make something unbalanced (or broken).  For example, Combination Attack isn't busted as its effect is ONLY situational, even if it had a Hard once per turn slapped on it. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Surge77754
overcomplicating things

[Surge77754]

Every archetype has a way of hand flowing.  For example, Invoked is all about using Aliester the Invoker and Invocation to "Invoke" their Fusion monsters, hence you want Aliester and possibly, Invocation, in your opening hand. 

If we look at Code Talkers, they want to get access to their Extra Deck by vomitting their Main Deck.   

Even custom archetypes that users design have hand movement to a degree.  

Edited November 2, 2021 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

Do not design your archetype so that it counters another archetype that someone else is designing.  It is no fun at all, as it takes the design aspect out of making a custom archetype, and are doing it just solely to win, which is not healthy for the yugioh card game.  You can discuss with others about how they design their archetype - that's okay.  

 

 

[Loleo]

On 11/4/2021 at 11:03 AM, Surge77754 said:

Do not design your archetype so that it counters another archetype that someone else is designing.  It is no fun at all, as it takes the design aspect out of making a custom archetype, and are doing it just solely to win, which is not healthy for the yugioh card game.  You can discuss with others about how they design their archetype - that's okay.  

 

 

This is called making hate cards, a lot of people are making anti hand traps, that's ok. There just becomes a problem when the counter is too specific, only works on very specific archetypes, or becomes overpowered everywhere.

[Surge77754]

The more generic a card is, the more careful you have to be with its power. 

4 hours ago, Loleo said:

This is called making hate cards, a lot of people are making anti hand traps, that's ok. There just becomes a problem when the counter is too specific, only works on very specific archetypes, or becomes overpowered everywhere.

Can you clarify when you say that "a problem when the counter is too specific, only works on very specific archetypes, or becomes overpowered everywhere"? 

[Loleo]

Specific archetype- Trap "If your opponent activates a pot card, negate the effect draw 2 cards and end their turn."

Too specific- Continuous Trap "If your opponent has a link monster and no monsters in their main monster zones: your opponent cannot activate monster effects." (obvious striker hate but with out saying the name of the archetype)

OP- Continuous Spell "If your opponent has no monsters in their GY: your opponent can't summon monsters." Looks like anti Madolche but just becomes a broken card,

[Surge77754]

Keep in mind that it's not the concept that determines whether or not your custom archetype is broken or not; it's the effects that do.  

Also, there's a reason why custom card guides stray away from a Link 1 monster - this is because the card advantage generated by a link 1 monster is -X + 1, and since X = 1, this is a +0 in card advantage, so you haven't really lost resources other than filling up your GY.  If a Link 1 monster had the effect of searching a certain field spell on Summon (i.e. Balelynx), the total advantage on that link 1 is +1, which is essentially like pot of greed, which was banned because it was splashable in every deck and goes for +1 in card advantage with no cost.

Also, keep in mind that if your archetype has a way to cheat out link monsters of your archetype with a higher rating, it becomes a problem as well.  

[Surge77754]

When locking your custom archetype, look carefully and see what can abuse it.  For example, take the following cases:

• Locking it to FIRE Warrior enables Infernoble shenanigans. 
• Locking it to WIND Warriors is a good ideas as WIND Warriors aren't the strongest, and thus enables the least amount of abuse, plus you lose access to the Link 2 Isolde as an extender. 
• Locking the custom archetype to WATER Beast-Warrior may be a problem as Tri-brigade is involved.  But if we look at the bigger picture, there are no WATER Beast-Warriors, so that doesn't lead to abuse as well. Plus you still want to consider the fact that you have 1 searcher due to Tenki and 3 copies of Tensu, which enable additional Normal Summons, even if Tribrigade wasn't around.   
• Locking your archetype to Warrior Union monsters is a good idea, as there are 3 cards, and they aren't very good.  
• Locking them to Spellcaster Union is a good idea, as there are no Spellcaster Union monsters in the database. Also, if the Spellcaster Unions are level 5 or lower, then Magician of souls won't work.  

Note that these cases were obtained when searching through the card database on Duelingbook.  

In all cases, locking your archetype can prevent abuse.  

Edited November 16, 2021 by Surge77754

[tripledawn]

Interesting note to add to the xenolocking talk point. 

Some of the most interesting cards (and popular) cards printed in recent years have a lesser restriction on them i.e. 'the rest of the turn, you can't summon/activate effects of X', to promote deckbuilding and player expression.

- Just look Dogmatika and how it still affects the game. 

- more interesting restrictions like 'normal summon cannot activate effects' has led to Brave Token engine adoption by Phantom Knights and other archetypes that don't need their normal summon.

Making architype with a splash-able engine can toe the thin line between unplayable and broken, so some care might be needed... but definitely worth exploring.

Edited November 15, 2021 by tripledawn

[Surge77754]

1 hour ago, tripledawn said:

Interesting note to add to the xenolocking talk point. 

Some of the most interesting cards (and popular) cards printed in recent years have a lesser restriction on them i.e. 'the rest of the turn, you can't summon/activate effects of X', to promote deckbuilding and player expression.

- Just look Dogmatika and how it still affects the game. 

- more interesting restrictions like 'normal summon cannot activate effects' has led to Brave Token engine adoption by Phantom Knights and other archetypes that don't need their normal summon.

Making architype with a splash-able engine can toe the thin line between unplayable and broken, so some care might be needed... but definitely worth exploring.

That is definitely interesting, as I learned that there is PK Brave Token.  And Dogmatika with its anti-ED Lock is still degenerate and unhealthy.  

[Surge77754]

To determine how generic a card is, look at what can abuse it.  

• Crystron Halq is very generic as it enabled a lot of degenerate plays outside the Crystron archetype.  In fact Halq caused a lot of Tuners to be banned.   
• Verte Anaconda is very generic as you can play it outside a Predaplant archetype. It was used as a way to get out Dragoon (one of the ways though). 
• The Link 2 Isolde is very useful in a Warrior equip deck, as well as other warrior based decks.  Hence, it's generic ONLY to Warriors and Warrior Equip decks

Being too generic is one way a custom card can become unbalanced or broken.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Surge77754]

It is always a good idea to use unexplored ideas as a way to make custom archetypes. But check their endboard and balance when doing so.  

You can do a FLIP monster archetype that utilizes Equip Spells with GY effects as the GY effects of the equip card will activate when they are sent to the GY, with the intent to use the FLIP mechanic to interact with them.

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

Some people use lore behind a show that they like to make custom cards.  Even the artwork on the cards can tell a story just by looking at the art.  

 

 

 

[Surge77754]

When looking at the feedback of your custom cards in terms of balance, do not take it too personally.  People struggle with this a lot.  

For example, say someone made a custom archetype that involved non-effect Extra Deck monsters.  They can use the Phantasm Spiral way to do it, or they can use Tenyi, which is effect monsters that activate in the GY that protect non-effect Link monsters.  Even though Tenyi has 1 link 1 monster, it is a non-effect monster, one must be careful when doing so as the card advantage is +0.  If the Main deck monsters of the custom archetype involve making Link 1 gain effects when they are used as material, that is another red flag. 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

A lot of other people on DuelingBook say that people create custom cards because they don't like the TCG cards.  But here's the thing - that is true, but at the same time, people want to make custom cards because they want to experiment with new ideas.  Don't be discouraged when you encounter those people saying that.

 

 

[Surge77754]

When thinking of the game plan behind your archetype, try to think of your archetype working visually in your mind.  Use your mind to see what you want your cards to do and implement that.  Once you have that. use that idea to design your archetype.  

For example, if your idea was Xyz monsters that focus on ranking up or down, have cards that help you do that, but keep in mind Raidraptor.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

In short, to wrap up this list, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, here's my summary of how to make custom cards.

• First ask yourself, what you want your cards in the archetype as a whole to do.  
• Second, you want to ask yourself, what is your game plan of winning.  Keep in mind that all archetypes spam to some degree, hence spam is not a game plan, but rather, 1 part of it.
• Thirdly, make sure all cards in the archetype support your game plan. Using a simple mechanic in mind really helps.  
• Fourthly, check your end board via vigorous testing.  If you have 1 negate in the form of a counter trap, don't make any more disruptions.  You don't want to end up like other custom players that say "break my board" or those that don't want you to play the game. 
• Lastly, have fun.   

Peace out.

[Surge77754]

Try to make your cards so that you and your opponent can have much fun as possible.  A lot of people are saying that floodgates are bad in design, but let's compare the floodgates to a degree.  

Mask of Restrict prevents anything from being tributed.  However, it's not a problem, as not all decks nowadays use Tribute Summoning.  Sure that stops True Draco, but at the same time, they have an out to it, and so do other custom archetypes.  Hence it's the weakest floodgate.  

Royal Decree negates all trap cards on the field.  However, not all archetype are trap card based (e.g. Altergeists and Traptrix),  It doesn't stop you from playing the game because Trap cards need one turn to set.  Plus not all custom archetypes rely on Trap cards.  

Rivalry of Warlords/Gozen Match stop your opponent from playing unless they play a deck with either exactly 1 Attribute or exactly 1 monster Type.  This shuts down the game completely.

There can only be one prevents opponents from playing the game unless they use an archetype which consists of multiple different monster Types.  This is unhealthy for the game because it says "Screw you" to the opponent ... which encourages bad sportsmanship.  Hence it is one of the strongest floodgates. 

Macro Cosmos prevents the opponent from playing the game because nowadays, a lot of decks rely on the GY to make their plays.  Hence it is the strongest floodgate. 

Imperial Iron Wall prevents ALL banishing, but it doesn't stop your opponent from playing it s/he uses a strategy that does not rely on banishing.  It is a somewhat medium-strong floodgate, as it doesn't shut down the game completely.  Plus it can be used as an out to certain banishing strategies.   

Cards that prevent you from Special Summoning are very badly designed because it takes away the most powerful aspect of the game - Special Summoning.  Some cards even prevent your opponent from playing, or limit them.  

Edited December 27, 2021 by Surge77754

[drowsyCoffee]

Eh, might as well add a bit to the discussion

 

One particular piece of advise that i'd been given a hella long time ago, which i'd been trying to apply to moderate success, is that you should in general try to design your custom archetypes from the top and then downwards. What do i mean by this? Ya might wanna make first the payoff of your archetype, wether it is a specific support card that lets you plus to infinity or a certain specific boss monster, before you design the engine of your deck

 

The reason being, its in general very hard to envision from an engine alone what your deck will really be able to do. When making your archetype's engine, ya might figure out a few combo lines and get a basic idea of how your deck plays out, but it wont be after you build a deck with it, handtest the deck, and playtest it a few times that you'll be able to have a more or less accurate idea of how your deck plays off in practice. There will be a lot of general misconceptions that you'll have when making your archetype, like underestimating the overall deck space that your engine takes and believing you'd be able to cram a lot of handtraps into it, or thinking it's consistent when in practice you cannot really go full combo around a third of the time. Another thing to have into consideration is that without handtesting and playtesting, its particularly hard to figure out how often you get to do all your combo, how often you have hands that can extend further, how often your hands dont get there and how to play those hands, to not talk about how your deck might be able to respond to being interrupted by your opponent

 

Thus, since its in general so hard to figure out how exactly your engine will really play out, designing a boss monster or a payoff for it is in general quite challenging. Its hard to know how many materials you'd have available, wether its worth it or not for the deck to invest its resources on a boss monster, or to know if the effects of the boss monster are practical and synergistic with your engine. Its very easy to end up with a boss monster that takes far too many resources and its just plain up inconvenient for its archetype, or to make a boss monster that takes a bit too little effort to summon and ends up being problematic by just looking at an engine and trying to guess how hard it will be able to go. So, due to that, i heavily recommend making whatever the payoff for your deck is first and then trying to design your engine, however you want to make it, with said payoff in mind. By designing all your combo pieces with a certain boardstate to archieve in mind, not only you increase the chances of your boss monster actually being appropiate for the archetype, given that it was designed from the start with summoning it in mind, but you also increase your chances of ending up with an engine that is at least  cohesive, given that every card was made with certain combo lines to fit into in mind. I personally find it to be much easier (when i actually follow this advice, because im a bit of a moron and i often ignore it) to make an archetype's engine and to design combo lines within it when i can have a certain goal for the archetype in mind, in this case, being able to summon the big boss monster i designed at the start of the process

 

I recommend y'all to try this out at least once, and hope that it is helpful for y'all. Also, i heavily recommend using something like DB to deck build and handtest your customs, at least for me it has really helped me improve my skills regarding to designing custom archetypes

[Surge77754]

Well, as drowsy said, try to make your archetype cohesive by deck testing, coming up with a specific theme for your cards.  Even for a combo strategy, there are certain chokepoints to your archetype.  In some cases, your combo archetype may have a midrange strategy, which although unusual, can be really good at times.  You don't really need complex cards to make a combo.  Just ask yourself, what happens if the opponent interrupts me?

For example, chaining Ash to a searcher might disrupt your strategy, so what? If you have a secondary way to do your combo, you can mislead the opponent and give yourself an advantage. (i.e. use a secondary extender in case).  Sure there are some custom archetypes that die to 1 or 2 handtraps, but even so, the endboard is affected. 

Just because a custom archetype can play through 1 or 2 handtraps does not mean the archetype itself is broken.  

Edited January 3, 2022 by Surge77754

[drowsyCoffee]

Exactly as you said. A midrange archetype that can play through virtually an infinite amount of handtraps isnt inherently broken, its what theyre supposed to be able to do. The ability to play through multiple handtraps is only worrying if after doing so you manage to put up a formidable board. The stronger your end board is, the weaker you should make your archetype to handtraps, and viceversa. Afterall, that leads to more interaction as a player (In theory). If your combo deck churns out 3~4 negates effortlessly, BUT, falls over with one or two well placed handtraps, then the interaction between players in it is centered around your opponent trying to get a read on your hand and using their own knowledge of your deck to spot the chokepoint in your combo and interrupt it and you trying to engineer lines that dodge handtraps or bait and mislead your opponent into using them incorrectly (This is also why i dont recommend making combo customs, besides the fact that they're quite hard to make, they dont lend themselves well to the kind of format that custom duels are. Against combo, Handtrap management and deck knowledge are the most important things, and in custom duels people dont use handtraps nor would they know your deck beforehands. Sure, going second power cards also work, but people aint carrying those either, and those are most relevant post-siding, which happens rarely as most custom duels are best-of-one). On the other hand, if you have a midrange deck, the fact that your end boards are overall weaker can compensate for resillience towards handtraps, by shifting the gameplay loop from "how do i prevent this board from being made" to "how do i play through this board". So, in general, whenever your deck outputs a worrying amount of negates, or plays through a worrying amount of interruptions, you should ask yourself "Is this deck able to play through HTs?/Is this deck's enboard all that menacing?" before grabbing the nerf hammer. It might take some time playing and/or seeing other people play to get a hang of what specific types  of end boards and/or HTs dodged are most problematic from a balance standpoint, but in modern yugioh it has become kind of a requisite to make realistic-looking archetypes as those specific traits on a deck have becomed more and more relevant

[drowsyCoffee]

Another concept that i thought might be useful to learn for people making customs is: Dont be afraid of card advantage. I see people always being hella scared of giving cards effects that allow them to draw cards, specially when those effects allow them to go +1, when in reality, a card that draws card and allows you to go +1 (Like, for example, a spell that draws you 2 cards) isnt inherently strong. To prove my point, look at Pot of Avarice. Pot of Avarice is a spell that's legal at 3 copies, sees next to no use, and has an effect that says "Target 5 monsters in your GY; shuffle all 5 into the Deck, then draw 2 cards.". Its not like its an imposible condition to meet, in fact, about any modern Link Climbing deck could easily use a Pot of Avarice they drawn at some point in their combo. What makes a card strong and heavily played, what makes Pot of Desires an extremely popular card while Pot of Avarice is plain up not used, isnt wether those cards allow you to go +1, but the context of how you go +1 with them

 

Drawing cards isnt necessarily always as strong. There are situations in which the cards you draw have more value, and others in which they have less. As for example, drawing a singular card at the end of you combo is pretty bad, as there are high chances that whatever card you drew will not be live on your hand, either because you already used a copy of it earlier during your combo, thus, having the HOPT on it spent, or because even if you could use it, the extension it would grant you wouldnt be enough to further your plays for far enough to get you an extra form of interaction. In general, as a good rule of thumb, the earlier you make a draw in your turn, the more valuable it is. Drawing cards earlier means that you get to play around them. You might change your lines depending on the access to a different form of extension, such as using a searcher to add an extender after the draw effect gave you the target you'd normally add with that search, to give the most clear example of it. As such, drawing cards later on is weaker than doing so later, given that later you'd be already commited to a certainly line and it would be harder to fit your drawn cards into your combo. This is more or less the root of why Pot of Desires and Extravagance were so strong within the metagame. By drawing cards at the start of your turn, the only scenarios were the drawn cards would have no value whatsoever would be if you drew either a duplicate of a HOPT card or a Garnet, heavily increasing the value in drawing cards from your deck. You are also at the start of you combo, meaning that you're still able to adapt your lines based on the new information and resources that you've got from your draws

 

Another thing, perhaps the most relevant thing, about the value of drawing early on your turn, is interruptions and digging. At the start of your turn, you are attempting to assemble a board, and your opponent is trying to stop you, either through Handtraps or just your regular interruptions. Since they have a set amount of times they can stop one of your cards, adding more resources to your combo is particularly valuable, as it makes so its easier to let your combo go through. On the other hand, adding resources after you managed to combo isnt as valuable, as your opponent already failed to stop you. You are on a winning scenario, getting even more ahead at that point is not gonna make as big of a difference that when you were on a balanced scenario. On the other hand, drawing early on your turn is valuable because it allows you to dig for cards that you might need to be able to combo off, like handtrap hate. Since cards that will draw cards later on need you to be able to combo off first, they dont provide you with any help in those sorts of scenarios. In fact, if you aren able to do so, they will be dead on hand, and will have the same value as having drawn a Garnet, which is to say, none

 

Thus, there is an easy series of things to check when trying to figure out if a card that goes +1 is strong or not (And were not talking about Extra Deck monsters because those are a tad more complex). One, can you activate it as soon as your turn starts? If yes, it might be strong. Two, are the requirements easy to met, and can they be meet even in scenarios were you arent able to combo off? If yes, again, it might be strong. And finally, three, by the moment when the card is able to be activated, do you need to already have commited to a line? Can your deck change plans based on your draws? Does your deck still have resources live in deck to draw by the point were you activate it?

 

That's more or less it. So long as the cards conditions cannot be met at the start of your turn, it will already be hard for it to be straight up broken. If it requires you to combo off, or only can be used near the end of a combo, you'd start to question wether it is even playable, as win-more cards dont make for good decks. It takes a bit more experience, specially with monsters that can be summoned from deck or extra deck monsters, to judge the card's power level, but at least for these less flexible cards this should be a good enough guide to follow. Dont fear Draw 2 effects. They are nowhere near as powerful as you'd think

[Surge77754]

Do NOT take card advantage as the enemy when designing customs.  Card advantage has always been a part of yugioh as a whole because yugioh is about getting the resources you need via searching and getting back your resource(s) that you've initially used up.  Draw 1 isn't as powerful as you think because the card that you drew may be a garnet/brick at best, as it is a +0 in card advantage at best. Hell, even searchers exist in custom archetypes for a reason - to get the stuff you need in that custom archetype. 

Keep in mind that baiting the opponent's handtrap does not make a custom archetype broken.  Baiting is one of the tactics used in yugioh - to falsely trick the opponent into wasting their handtrap.  

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Surge77754