Some Yu-Gi-Oh Players Don't Understand This Problem

[@workdangit7]

I agree, trying to teach someone Yu-Gi-Oh from scratch almost like teaching them rocket science. People joke about the Yu-Gi-Oh academy but I think we actually need it at this point.

[@Zingar96]

Trying to explain any of my decks combos to my partner who I just got to watch DM Yugioh last month is next to impossible

[@asuraphreak]

I still don't get pendulum or link summoning. I'm just like "Go Dark Magician!" cause he use to be good. Good to collect though. 😅

[@Zingar96]

@@asuraphreak yeah man pendulum is so far beyond me but links are okay. As long as it doesn’t mention “co-linked” it’s not to complex

[@cnssegura]

I usually tend to go one slow step at a time for that. lol

[@Retro_Mage]

@@Zingar96 Co-linking is pretty hard to pull off (right now anyways).

[@asy444minotaur3]

I just experienced this with my own friends. When master duel came out they were both interested in trying it. They played for maybe two-three weeks then stopped. I asked them why and they both said that everything was really confusing and that every deck they faced was overpowered. One of the had some replays and showed them to me. The decks were all low tier or gimmick decks like Exodia, Traptrik, Gran Maju, or Blue-eyes. We laugh cause we think “it’s Exodia, no problem” but with a new player they don’t know what that means and most Exodia decks are draw/stall decks which play differently to a Traptrik or a Blue-eyes. All of that just overwhelmed them so they stopped

[@TraaaaaasshBooooaaaatttt]

Blue eyes over powered lol your friends are really out of it for real

[@Drakshl]

@@TraaaaaasshBooooaaaatttt if your a new player I could imagine it feeling that way, no need to flame lol.

[@Drakshl]

As someone who Occasionally plays exodia casino OTK in master duel I can see why that deck would feel very un fun for a new player to go into

[@kakaboo]

even as an older player im also unable to get into master duel as partly im lazy to relearn so many combos and decks. as even if u are not playing the deck u also have to learn how the other decks play so that u know when to interrupt or stop their combos at the best time etc. duel links used to be ok but as they also started added more and more similar mechanics to normal yugioh it also became harder and harder for beginners to get into the game.

[@cleanseroftheworld]

@@TraaaaaasshBooooaaaatttt Can you beat a competent blue eyes deck with no handtraps, no floodgates, and with a deck that bricks more than them without really understanding your best combos and ratios? Because that's what a new player goes through. Doesn't matter if blue eyes is bad, only that it's better than the newbies'

[@shaunbond2107]

Speaking as an og player, who left before all the crazy combos were added, and just came back maybe 6 months ago, it's definitely a high learning curve. However, most people I have played against and talked to have been nice and have offered tips. So while the barrier to entry may be high, I love this community, and I think most people would too. Thanks for all your videos, and can't wait for the next one!

[@luchotenks2310]

I left the game both online and irl for like 2 years. I came back a few days ago and tried to get used to the new cardpool by testing it against the AI's top decks. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the infamous 8 year old kid that came up with absolute gems of balanced card design such as Thunder Dragon Colossus, Red Eyes Dark Dragoon and Destroy Phoenix Enforcer, has now been hired full time and tasked with the creation of new archetypes. I took a quick glance at what Yugioh Card Maker monstrosities he came up with and immediately knew I was in for a crazy ride in this power creep rollercoaster. I tried out one of their newest masterpieces, an archetype called Kshatri-la. A bunch of badass looking Level 7 monsters with 2k+ ATK that special summon themselves from the hand for free. Of course they would do that. If they didn't, how else would you normal summon Aleister the Invoker? Wait, do people even play that engine anymore? Imagine using your normal summon in the year 2022 lmao. Anyway, half of these monsters special summon themselves via inherent special summons and the other half through Quick Effects so good luck preventing them from hitting the field. And if you just so happen to be one of those Yugi-boomers who enjoy doing your normal summons, the archetype's Continuous Spell has got you covered. It lets you normal summon the level 7 monsters with zero tributes. See? Even to this day they cater to the OG fans of the anime in the DM era. By the way, this Spell also works as a Monster Reborn each turn because you can never have too many free revival effects. Redundancy be damned. Here, have a Continuous Trap card with the copy pasted free revival effect. I mean, it's technically different because this one also lets you look and banish cards from your opponent's hand. But it's all fine because Traps are slow and therefore balanced. At least they made them searchable, just like everything else in this archetype. By the way, it is not modern Yugioh unless you cram the effects of multiple Spells and Traps on a single Effect monster. Bonus points if these effects have no cost at all and can be triggered as easily as blinking. Fortunately for us, this prodigious 8 year old card designer delivers in this regard as well. These free beatsticks give you both free card advantage and the best form of spot removal the game has ever seen in the form of banishing face-down. Did I mention both of these effects can be used each turn, even during your opponent's? The Extra Deck monsters (2 rank 7 Xyz) are nothing to seeze at either. One of them is a 3K DEF wall that blocks your opponent's card zones every time you banish their stuff and is not a hard once per turn. It also has built-in protection to destruction because, why not? The other Xyz is a 3K ATK Dark Law with a free Quick Effect spot removal that gains materials, you guessed it, every time you banish your opponent's stuff. I might be reaching little bit here, but it seems that adding insult to injury was the design philosophy behind this archetype. I can't wait to see what the other archetypes are like. I've been hearing lovely things about Tearlaments and Sprights.

[@diamondsanchez224]

I do agree with many points in this video, and I do think I have a solution. I think a cool idea would be Konami releasing *good* Starter decks, each of which are timeless (Meaning they can be good for years, like Sky Strikers or Salamangreats) and relate to a specific summoning mechanic. These would not be the same Starter decks that coincided with each new mechanic, but instead, these Starter decks would be legitimately premade competitive decks with 3-ofs and maybe even a few staples (Nothing crazy, but even just Effect Veilers, Ghost Ogres, stuff like that). They would each be based on a brand new archetype that is centered around that summoning mechanic. The decks should have simplistic gameplans, much like Fur Hires or Water Xyz, and should come with guides that teach the deck's strategy and combos, as well as the summoning mechanic in-question. They could make ones for Rituals, Synchros, Xyz, Links, Pendulums, and Fusions, even selling them separately as well as a bundle that includes all of them to get new players started. This can allow players to have multiple Starter decks to choose from and can allow players to figure the game out with their friends.

[@jintheinformer]

I've seen Japanese card shops offer pre-built decks in this vein, including a side deck, and a quick intro on the themes of the decks. They usually were priced around 5,000 to 7,000 yen, as of this comment that'd be around 34 - 48 USD. I'd like to think it'd be a huge win for Konami to release these sort of decks in all regions. Magic has this in the form of Challenger decks, which are decks based on meta decks with less staples inside. I'd love to see a similar product for Yugioh, not only to get people familiarized with some decks that are competitive, but also to get more reprints out into peoples' hands.

[@spookyoreos1134]

This genuinely a good idea, I do have friends who are very weary to playing yugioh. Because it is rather overwhelming game to learn. So having decks that can teach them each summoning mechanic while also giving them idea to what deck building looks like, is great.

[@tylerkovalskas9780]

this is an absolutely wonderful idea! i wish i could see it being something konami would actually do.

[@exiaR2x78]

@The tricky tick Thats another problem with Yugioh TCG which doesnt help things at all. Duel devestator was great to get staple cards but you still had to buy 3 of them to get a play set. They need to make staple cards cheaper through lots of reprints. I remember back in the day MST and monster reborn were staples and in every single starter deck/structure deck.

[@jada75]

Being 100 transparent... I am 46 years old and I just started playing Yu-Gi-Oh when Master Duel dropped in the beginning of this year. I learned how to play and understand the mechanics by playing the solo mode of the game & my first in-game deck being Trif's FTK/OTK Pend-deck. By Mar 2022, I was buying Battle Of Chaos booster boxes, 2021 Tins, and Maximum Gold El Dorado displays... long ass story less long my first actual IRL deck was a Branded Darklord Despia based off the Albaz Structure deck that i would pilot at locals. Present day I run a Branded TearPlant deck & building my own variation of a Danger!/Tear/Spright/Adventure deck based off of Trif's and Jesse's YCS Brazil decks.... THIS GAME IS NOT DIFFICULT FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO GENUINELY LEARN. My biggest difficulty is reading the small text on so many cards and understanding discarding for cost and discard for effect. I live in Las Vegas and work in the nightclub industry, I'm not suppose to even give a damn about this game but here I am.

[@uS0ra]

so true, playing mtg/pokemon is just so much more chill and relaxing when you arent trying to keep up with 20 card combos every turn with every card having a paragraph of text

[@benzelwasington4059]

Try out digimon to one day

[@davidcorrea-3136]

learning curve in yugioh is definitely huge.. when I came back to master duel I played against ai exclusively alot to learn the new cards.. when people are playing 15 cards a turn and every card has an essay written on them.. I have no idea what to negate and feel self conscious that I'm taking too long

[@EKo_CVZ]

Honestly, as someone dabbling in YGO for the first time, even things like activation timings feels overwhelming. Like at what point when a person activates an effect do I get to say I want to respond without missing timing etc.

[@ducky36F]

Missing timing and chain blocking etc are some of the worst rules in yugioh tbh

[@TheFallinhalo]

this is why the games ruling need to be retooled, and junk activation timing. You either meet the cards activation condition or you dont, that simple. many times ive played with lightsworns and ended up dumping lightsworn sabre from my deck by a lightsworns effect, but something else happens and thus "missed the activation timing of Lightsworn sabre" Like EXCUSE ME??? it says it needs to go fromt he top of the deck to the GY by the effect of a lightsworn. and then i can equip it, i just did that but somehow i missed the timing?

[@YohananYGO]

Yeah Raidraptor Infernity And Crystal beasts combos are long and even players that know the game do mistakes when playing them , try to memorize the combos in one try it's hard

[@YohananYGO]

@@TheFallinhalo put the milling effects to resolve last , if it happens in the middle or at the start of the chain order is how it misses timing also the card is not good , you can cut it for like even metalfoes fusion to get free draw

[@YohananYGO]

@@ducky36F yeah it only happens when cards must activate at the same is when you can't get to respond to a specific card until the opponent finishes making the chain order is when you can respond to his last card that he wants to resolve first

[@professorsequoia7318]

Yugioh has a new player retention problem and as a community we tend to gatekeep on average. Your point here are on point and are what Konomi will need to try and solve for the long term of their game

[@upvoter8798]

Have not really seen any gatekeeping. Of course last time I had a chat about it. everyone had their own different meaning of that word. One guy going, yeah it gatekeeping to not tell your friend about a horror movie, even if you know they hate horror movies and have zero interest in them. Which is why if gatekeeping is a issue. Might be helpful to say what it is and how it happening. Which as for new players. Yeah Most I seen. they just give up, due to all the long card text and even very simple decks making you have to brain blast to understand them.

[@aasgier9091]

I entirely agree. Yu-Gi-Oh is so difficult to get into, and I am seeing players struggle. For me it was slightly different as my understanding of Yu-Gi-Oh was limited to the playground and Progression Series when I started at Master Duel, so I at least knew some things, but damn it was still complex. One thing I did was that in my first few days I specificially crafted an Aromaseraphy Rosemary to test if Synchro Summoning it with Sunny Pixie would trigger her effect (it does). The fact that Aromaseraphy Rosemary hits the field before Sunny Pixie resolves was eye-opening and really a good example of a more complex interaction to get to understanding how interactions that are not chains resolve. In the early Synchro era there are quite a few cute and simple interactions that are worth paying attention to for new player friendly decks, and Konami could build such a deck as a Starter Deck. Key Mouse and Lock Cat is another one, but that leads into Level 4 Synchro Monsters. I'm sure there are a few more. In the early Xyz-era there are those cards as well to easily facilitate Xyz-summoning, though many of these are outclassed by the Tenyi archetype now which are easier to use for both Synchro and Xyz-summoning, but their second effect is also kind of complex and shrinks the text size, so designing a new card that's just as versatile but just not as complex might be required. Make it a Fairy so it can be used to summon Fairy Cheer Girl, which is one of the simplest Xyz-monsters around in terms of effect (and it is coincidentally right on the theme with Sunny Pixie being there too). Still, Konami could take one (or several, provided they synergise somewhat) of those interactions and build a starter deck around it. Make sure a portion are Normal Monsters or otherwise easy to understand so people don't have to read as much and can just focus on the handful of complex interactions that are intended to be there - I found that this generally helps. Caveman YGO with just a slightly more modern touch. And put Heat Wave in there so you can force others to caveman too.

[@veg0machine]

I played Yu-Gi-Oh in 7 - 8th grade. I returned to Yu-Gi-Oh when I watched the original with my children in 2016. I bought 3 Yugi and 3 kiaba reloaded collector boxes for my children and 2 dragons collide for my self.we played off and on ignoring mostly ignoring the meta but we slowly learned and learned how to power crept each other until now my ten and twelve year old can mostly do it all but timing can sometimes be and issue. lol ya I taught my 4.5 year old how to play Yu-Gi-Oh !

[@chrismiller3548]

I've been playing casually for several years and just recently I was able to teach someone how to play from scratch. When someone is interested in learning, you have to leave your judgement and bais at the door and take things slow until the person gets used to the basic mechanics. So many of the other people at my card shop make the mistake of using their super heavy combo deck to teach someone who is completely new. After something as confusing as that, most new players completely lose interest

[@PhantomPlaymaker25]

I agree. I think the best approach is to literally start from scratch, teach them the core basics like it was in the very beginning of the game, and incrementally go up from there. One of my friends wanted to learn how to play the game and another friend scared them off with teaching one of the current (of that time) meta decks and combos. That's way too much to chew when you have little or even no knowledge how the game works in the first place.

[@chrismiller3548]

@@PhantomPlaymaker25 that sucks, I'm always super excited when there's an opportunity to get new people into this community. My usual strategy is starting with goat, then edison, then HAT, and finally modern once the person has a grasp on everything

[@PhantomPlaymaker25]

@@chrismiller3548 Same, GOAT format, or even earlier game, is a great start for newcomers. It's not as competetive, but casual play is still fun, even when you can only play with just few people.

[@chrismiller3548]

@@PhantomPlaymaker25 there's also a ton of variety in goat as far as the monsters and themes you can play with besides just chaos

[@PhantomPlaymaker25]

@@chrismiller3548 True. GOAT didn't have as many archetypes as we do have now though. There were Gravekeepers, Chaos Decks as you say were a thing, but mostly there were just cards that synergysed with one another and could be used in variety of decks. Now we have bunch of archetypes in which you can get easily lost in. Meta ones have insane combos you can hardly outplay if you just recently started doing competetive. Back in the day there were broken cards and combos too, but the game state was simpler to get into and faster to get from casual to competetive and deal with it, I feel like.

[@speedertank2171]

I managed to get 2 of my friends into Yu-Gi-Oh through master duel. My third friend quit after his first duel because he sat through a 15 minute turn and had everything he did negated. I told him that was just bad luck he first game was against swordsoul and he said that wiped all interest he had.

[@daviddent5662]

It is said that happens. Used to be the worst that happened is you got trapholed or Nightmarewheeled and beat over but not OTK'd. Easier to take than every single move countered and a board built of a one card combo you literally had time to get sandwhich, drink and pay your bill before dying anyway. Heck that's why I'm not playing the festival now. I don't want to play a meta deck or premade I just want to play for fun but everyone's a troll or just playing brain dead negate everything.

[@ilhaniman5753]

@@daviddent5662 I'm sorry I built meta deck because I'm a FTP player so to save my resources I need to make at least 3 meta deck with different mechanic (now I have 5 meta deck)... Because resources is important I never craft when I built a rogue deck, if I didn't get a UR card that I want I will destroy it to get a staple card (that can't be gotten in secret pack). Now I have 5 rogue deck that can be played just to have fun

[@illustriousspellcaster5252]

Konami has not really done anything substantive to entice newer players to join the game. Nostalgia bait can only make so much sells, and they really aren’t a good indication of newer players purchasing these products. They could be scalpers for all we know. Some cynical players view the Yu-Gi-Oh! community as closed off and exclusionary, but I could not disagree more. The obnoxious part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! community can be summed up like in any other community: They are few and far between. While elitists in the competitive side of Yu-Gi-Oh! do exist (or in the Yu-Gi-Oh!) bubble as Paul puts it, in my experience, most players are welcoming and are eager to help new or casual players. My point is, the problem lies on the other side of the equation, the snobbish elitist casuals (or Yugiboomers) as they are often referred to. It is one thing to be ignorant of the game, but it is another issue altogether when these individuals actively spread misinformation about the game. Comments such as “Yu-Gi-Oh! is dead!” or something like “Links/Pendulums/insert other Extra Deck mechanic here ruined the game” don’t really entice newer players to join the game. If anything, these comments only serve to scare them away.

[@WingZero-us5df]

I'm a truck driver, so im not home alot, especially not the way the economy is right now. Keeping up with the meta is not something im really capable of doing cause new lists and new cards come out and the meta changes with it. My solution was to build a deck I know will never see a ban list (Poker Knights) and just max rarity it out all I gotta do is change the staples/handtraps/extra deck as needed but the core mainly stays the same. Another think is I play Goat and Edison cause those formats will never change at all

[@gmangaming4703]

I really like all of the points made as a new player who bought the Albaz strike structure deck it has been very difficult to learn the new game but if you just grit your teeth I guess and learn you just really have to take your time

[@grantashford4518]

I have been having this problem with my non yugioh friends even teaching goat format with goat control vs chaos turbo there is still stuff like using card on the opponents EP, damage step shenanigans, using facedown monsters as fusion material, chain links, priority, etc.. All these things yugioh players already know even if you never played goats it is easy to pick up. I do think teaching yugioh through legacy formats to non yugioh players is a good way since it is definitely simpler but tbh it has to be like very beginner legacy decks where it is mostly doing the basic fundamentals of the game and then evolve from there if interest is shown. Getting new players interested is the most important part because they will want to learn and get better.

[@AznYunHou]

As a beginner duelist, i am building like my 19th deck or something just cause some have different summoning mechanics and some are cheap cores to be able to built. But my main issue with building a deck is just looking at their main combo starter or spell and if it's like $15+, I'd be wary of getting it cause it's too much commitment. I usually love when reprint sets come out to lower the pricey cards especially if the original card only has one printing of secret rare.

[@Yodaminnesota]

I came over from hearthstone and MTG arena because I heard that Master duel was really good (and it is) but I totally agree with you. If I were to read every card on the field without moving my mouse occasionally I would literally forfeit the game because of the amount of time. There's also really confusing shit like targeted vs untargeted removal. But in my opinion the very worst problem Yugioh has as someone who is actively trying to get into it is that it's very difficult to, after a match is over, assess how well you did. There are so many options you have available to you and it's very difficult for me to think back after a loss as to what the correct line would have been. In MTG if you tap out to play a huge creature vs. a blue deck with mana up and get your play countered you will always be playing two smaller creatures first against them in the future. In yugioh it is very difficult for a new player to even understand what they did wrong or what they should do better next time.

[@cabri358]

I've been playing MTG for 17 years and yugi as a side game for like 10 years... the combos in yugi are so convoluted and specific within each archetype, that it gets annoying. In MTG we have simple 2 cards combos like "when you lose life I gain life + when I gain life you lose life" that make an infinite loop. But the cards in MTG are pretty generic in what they do and the archetypes are way more broad, so you can even use cards on multiple types of decks if necessary. The difficulty of learning yugi is you will have to know and understand each specific combo for each deck and that is just memorizing a LOT of cards. I can easily sit and explain magic to a new player, but for explaining yugi you have to learn every time you encounter a new deck.

[@nicholastheall619]

Part of the issue is a lot of players don’t try to explain what happen after a loss and just leave people out to dry.

[@farfetchdideas695]

@@cabri358 For me, the fact that each of the archetypes in Yugioh do play so differently is part of the appeal. If someone on the outside watched a turn of Sky Striker, Cardian, Floowandereeze, or Vaylantz play out they'd probably swear each of those decks came from completely different card games rather than all being Yugioh decks. While I understand it can be frustrating to some to have to memorize what feels like multiple different games just to play one card game, that wide variance of play styles and strategies is my favorite part of it. It's also why I like Commander so much in MTG, a high powered commander can completely warp how you build and play a deck and I like the variety that brings.

[@daviddent5662]

Well put. Nothing is a better learning curve on conserving resources than watching your expensive Vorinclex get countered by a simple Negate and realizing you could have played your four cost and had room for Tamiyo's Safekeeping or Snakeskin Veil for a better advantage. I also think MTG rewards more "monkey see monkey do". Watching a player do something in Yugioh that's just two cards long isn't hard to teach somebody to replicate and it works for MTG for sure, but when it's a Pendulum effect that's causing a spooky interaction or five tokens just came down and they banish something from the grave at the same time to make it happen....yeah it takes a long time replicate and not many new players are going to feel they can do it.

[@daviddent5662]

@@nicholastheall619 Or can't explain in the case of Master Drool with no chat and most people not playing against friends or worse friends pulling a school of hard knocks like it's anime. "You will learn this by me beating you with it. Then one day you will beat it yourself and feel twice the reward!" TuT Nooo! Don't do that to noobs. XD It might seem fun and anime but no don't. One of the best things about Paper Modern for me personally in MTG: after the match and sometimes even during when facing a judge I would get tips on how I could do things better. It wasn't all monkey see monkey do or prove to me you are worthy. MTG players usually treat each other as worthy from the outset. Like how I showed a n00b how Hyrkull's Recall worked on all his artifact creatures and a judge leaned over from his game and was like "And because he's using lands with that type as well he loses them when you cast it." it was sad but it was a good teaching moment. I also took his deck apart and assessed it as if it were my own and gave him the usual modern speech of: "if it's just jank you want this will do but honestly 100+$ in fetches or shocks wouldn't hurt you. Also please sleeve this Rystic Buddy? It's a 25$ card, my brother." We shared info and it felt good! Even in DL we don't always do that and it's much friendlier than MD. I don't know about paper Yugioh players. I would hope they are all like Team APS and break stuff down to people who don't know what they're doing.

[@bej4987]

I stopped playing consistently around 2010, now I just casually play duel links or master duel sporadically a couple times a year.

[@mitthrawnuruodo1730]

This is true. I’ve played this game my ENTIRE LIFE, and I’m 25yo. One of my earliest memories was playing yugi moto starter deck with my brothers and I never stopped. Thinking about it now I can’t imagine starting to play now…

[@magmapagliaesopravvalutato6838]

3:30 i love sky striker. It doesn’t do combos, the cards work individually and their very clear in what they do. Recently a friend of mine tried it and decided to give yugioh a try, then realised how other decks are so complicated and gave up, sadge

[@GetYourGameonWithJer]

I agree Paul that is why my YT channel focused on helping new and returning players due to alot of the stuff you talked about Even in the YugiTuber community most of the content doesn't help them like most people do profiles 95% or more of the community can't play cause they can't afford them or maybe card or 2 out of the set 👀 I try to keep that in mind with the deck profiles I do and have a how-to-play series on my channel, I liked the jaron part you brought up that most people dont understand I'll definely put something together so that help those players that need something like that broken down. I love how you brought up scareclaw man I've been pushing people to play this deck for 3 months now the deck is tier 1 and most people don't see even without the darkwingblast support or proton hypernova 🔥 Konami does need to come out with more formats for us to play I know you have talked about this in other videos as well and that fix all the issue we have so those players have a outlet that doen't want to play the main format. Thanks for sharing as always man 🙏

[@theopeneyes]

It also doesn't help that some card effects aren't exactly intuitive to read or worse weirdly less descriptive compared to the rest of the cardtext. For example I thought "attacks involving this monster" meant that said monster had to be the attacker not that it was involved in battle, and "banish this card (until the end phase)" being weirdly in-descriptive since it means the card comes back onto the field which the text never says when normally the cardtext would have said it. And don't get me started on "missed the timing" which has to be the most non-intuitive ruling in all of card games that I can easily see feeling like a "nu uh you didn't hit me" god-mode moment when your opponent corrects you about it.

[@dazk5317]

When I was a kid I played yugioh around 2008 - 2010, and I loved it but at some point I stopped playing and stop caring about it for years, until last year when I came across a yugioh store with some friends and we remembered how much we used to like and decided to give it a shot. Playing at a casual rate first with friends, then with ohter people at locals maybe once a month, and checking some youtube videos, it has taken me one whole year until now that I finally am almost confident that I understand the game on a pretty decent level. I cant even begin to imagine how someone that has never played yugioh, and never cared about it would react to learning the game from scratch in 2022, I certainly dont think many people if any at all will do it.

[@jo3y960]

I agree with all that this video has to say on introducing the game to newer audiences and players who are returning years later. I think this is a direct consequence of how the game has evolved since DM era, and I think that most knowledge that yugioh players can get under their belt is glossed over as we already know these base mechanics. We know you can only normal summon once (unless a card lets you do more). We know Tributes count as normal summons. We know how many tributes you need for each level. We know you can special summon as much as you can. But the Extra deck mechanics are where things just begin to start derailing. Everyone thinks Synchros and Pendelums but dude, look at how many ways you can Fusion Summon. We've literally said screw it and decided to just special summon fusions from the deck (Runicks). Rituals as well, needing to explain how rituals work as well. Yugioh has such a MASSIVE mechanic list that I think the best way to break it down is by simply showing off the mechanics in action. I think better starter decks and structure decks would help with that, focusing on specific mechanics and making them viable as well. You can also explain different types of decks such as Control, Combo, Burn, etc. These are all unofficial terms the community gives to these decks, but nothing is official. Its sort of just up to the community to decipher how to play these decks. Its partially why Deck Profiles and Combo tutorials are so popular because people just dont know how the deck plays. Its up to them to figure out all the complexities and what to put in your side or Extra Deck. The best way to describe Yugioh now is that the game has become SO esoteric that even older players can barely keep up with the changes made to the game, let alone newer players who want to get into it. Its partially why I think other card games like Magic and Pokemon are favored, solely because the game has evolved to the point of esoteric entropy. Its also why I think support for older archetypes to make them meta relevant is so important too, as it gives older players a fighting chance to play with newer mechanics alongside with familiar cards they remember.

[@duelme1234]

Thank you for the video. I've always put a lot of emphasis on expanding one's viewpoints and seeing what different people think about the same issue. This video really showed that many of us (including myself) really need to get better at doing this.

[@blackmark2899]

The barrier of entry isn't just higher, it's more expensive. Before all you needed was 3 starter decks and maybe $20-30 bucks worth of extra cards to really start taking tournaments seriously. Now, that's not even a starting point, and staples are even more expensive than ever. There's no onboarding process. Not a product you can buy, not a manual you can read, not a game you can play that's both simple to understand and teaches you. Master Duel tries its best to teach you mechanics but it's choppy and need to know combos and knowledge just isn't there. It's a lot like WH40K bubble. There is really nothing to help you understand how to play Warhammer. If you have no knowledge at all about it, you'll be lost. We used to joke about the idea of a Duel Monster's academy back in GX. But now, it's almost something that's definitely seems to be needed.

[@Disappointed_Philosoraptor]

As someone who got back into yugioh in the form of master duel aroudn february of this year after only ever playing "schoolyard yugioh" where mystical space typhoon was a negate etc it has been one hell of a learning curve. I did choose to play all of the PvE tutorials before starting to duel palyers and i have to say, when i first clicked the "duel training" and saw 12 different tutoral duels staring back at me i almost quit then and there. I happened to have a lot of time that day and also happened to click on the stages and sw that they awarded generous amonuts of gems to open packs with so i stuck around. It was that day when a whole new universe of how yugioh actually works opened up to me. It was the first time i ever heard about the existence of chains and how they resolve. Hell, it was the first time i heard about the existence of standby and end phase. My point is that even with all the information avaliable to me for free, with tutorials that even gave generous rewards just the fact that i had to sit there for like 3 hours and just absorb a huge amount of crucial and complex information almost made me quit just because it was so much *work* to get into this game. The barrier for entry is absurdly high and the only way this could change is if yugioh introduced a permanent simplified format to ease people into the game. a legacy format which goes no further than at most the early cyberdragon era. It's when the game started to become complex but not to the point of all the link, synchro and, god forbid, pendulum madness.

[@FlakManiak]

I only started playing this game in earnest in mid-2022, after having played it a bit as a small child in probably 2003. Basically I wondered what had happened to this game in the past 20 years, what kinds of insane mechanics it had, because occasionally I would see a card-image and have no idea what any of it was. I was curious about how this game had evolved, because it was clearly so different from all the other card games. And I have to say, it is extremely difficult to learn for a lot of reasons. There's UI/typesetting etc. reasons, things about readability, but... It's genuinely extremely complex, and a LOT of the complexity is... Not "pointless", but not pulling its weight in terms of adding depth. The amount of stuff you'd have to explain to someone to let them play a vaguely-good deck... I mean, I picked Eldlich because "use trap cards when appropriate" is definitely a lot more approachable than, say, Pendulums! Of course I do have to learn how every deck I face works, inside and out, all their different lines of play, and when they can be disrupted, in order to know when to use my traps! So then, even after knowing a bunch of Eldlich stuff, and absorbing some Swordsoul/Adventure Tenyi/Branded/Floowandereeze knowledge by facing it on Master Duel... Then I build a (very bad!) Cyber Dragon deck, and there are SO many moving parts and obstacles to merely making a Cyber Dragon Nova. I stare at the cards in my hand and run through different lines in my head. And repeat, for every single archetype I could build! I've never played another card game like this, where I need to know not just one but a BUNCH of specific combos in order to just... Do a basic thing and make an important card. Which isn't to say that that's "bad"; there is value in being unique! That's why I ended up trying to play this game, because it's a unique abyss (of madness and despair)! That's much more compelling than being another bland dudebasher. But it does mean that this game is almost totally inaccessible; you have to be just about monomaniacally obsessed in order to even try learning it. When I was doing Master Duel 1P missions, I said that each one felt like an LSAT reasoning question, where you have to read a bevy of text and puzzle out which things are possible. In fact if I were designing it I might have made it more "puzzles" than "duels"; you could give the player a pre-planned situation, and ask them "achieve X", and make it so there isn't any hidden/random information, no variance, and give them an undo button. You see what I'm saying; let them figure out the lines of play in an interactive way.

[@justheretowatchvideosandco9424]

Speed Duels

[@FlakManiak]

@@justheretowatchvideosandco9424 Speed Duels don't really address it... Because the thing I was curious about was all the crazy and weird mechanics bolted onto the game since it was a bland no-resource-system game in 2002. The more weird stuff the better. If I thought it would play like the 2002 game, I wouldn't want to look at it... But, well, am I contradicting myself? Saying that the only reason I was interested in seeing where it had gotten to, was that it would be insanely complex? But, the thing I'm alleging is this: The original core mechanics of Yu-Gi-Oh! are not good. They are not the basis for a good card game. The extra things bolted on have to carry it. And... Maybe there isn't a solution to that, that makes it "simple" or "elegant" or "approachable" as well as interesting to me. But then... I'm here, aren't I? I'm mad enough to actually get into this game. Maybe that's fine, that only insane people can actually get into it. It's still one of the bestselling card games in the world, right? Well, in the end mostly I WOULD ask for UI/typesetting changes to make cards easier to read. I don't think it's excusable to format card text the way this game does. If the card text were formatted the way I want, I think that a lot of the complexity would be easier to deal with. And it would feel cooler, because the reading and playing experience would be smoother. The elaborate plays would come across better as some anime power-up sequence, rather than puzzling out card text like an LSAT question.

[@mrbubbles6468]

To play any card game you need to know what your deck does. That’s not knew to yugioh. Happens in every cardgame. So to is needing to know how your opponent’s stuff works which could something entirely different to you. That’s assuming you are playing in a competative enviroment. If you aren’t you have never needed to know as much.

[@jakebarlow4894]

Superb video that addresses some key issues, a couple of which I’ve encountered since I’ve come back to the game. I was playing in 2004-2007, then I stopped and returned a couple of months ago. I’m in the “wants to be informed but plays more casually” - I got to locals once or twice a month. Despite that, I’ve had to jump all in pretty quick to get used to all the new stuff, and a lot of players don’t have an awareness of people just getting into it. I played a match yesterday where my player spent a solid 5+ minutes doing combos on his first turn, playing an archetype I’ve never seen before, then taking the game that turn. I spent the duel staring into the distance and not really playing attention as I was bored. I may s we’ll have not been there. He then spent ages side decking and then started doing the same thing in the second duel so I surrendered. I play to be a little competitive, yes, but also to talk, interact, and enjoy the activity, not sit there to be combo played at for 5 minutes at a time. I think gatekeeping is a big potential issue - someone posting a casual or fun build based on a card they like from the show or something like that gets torn apart and shot down by more hardcore hobbyists. This is, of course, not unique to Yu-Gi-Oh, but if more high octane players understood that, then it would really help.

[@Anders0429]

I really felt this when I started playing Duel Links about a year ago. It was incredibly overwhelming, entering a format that I knew nothing about and having to grind a bit to even get the good cards. There was a huge barrier to entry where I was getting crushed by non meta decks all the time on the ladder, because I was just trying to make sense of the format. It wasn't until I dedicated several hours to reading various websites online that I was able to figure out the optimal way to play. Once I had a meta deck and knew what was going on, the game was a LOT more fun. The problem is, in both DL and the TCG, Konami does not do a good job of helping new players get to that "fun" stage.

[@shinydragonite5681]

I couldn’t agree more! Speaking as a former Pokémon TCG player from years back I remember trying to get into Yu-Gi-Oh and I never felt comfortable. All the rules and strategies seemed way more complicated and just the thought of me making a mistake or not knowing the different phrases always kept me from going to locals or playing in any sort of official event. I played casually with friends but ultimately stopped until this year. I downloaded Master Duel and the game has changed to say the least. I run a simple Gagaga Mahican XYZ deck nothing crazy but it’s what I feel comfortable with at the moment and also what I have fun with. I like Master Duel because it basically handles all the things that I can’t do in the real setting which may seem pathetic or lame but it’s the truth. I definitely want to become more comfortable in Yu-Gi-Oh but some of these decks and strats are insane!

[@asuraphreak]

I agree. I've watched the shows, played in the beginning (drugs got my teenage dumb ass), but recently decided to rejoin the fray. Immediately I was lost how the tcg works now. We didn't have side decks and a lot of cards weren't so technical and expansive. Duels didn't end in 2 or 3 turns.

[@crazyninja4828]

The way me and my friends got into yugioh was literally starting from the beginning and eventually expanding to new mechanics like we all started with dark magicians and blue eyes decks and slowly expanded from there like start learning about fusions, then synchros, xyz's , pendulums, and then link monsters and I was the judge of my friend group cus i went ahead and learned a lot of mechanics of the game and i will say there are soooo many rules/mechanics that are hard to keep track of for new players. If any other new players decide to quit cus of all these rules/mechanics, I don't blame them because it is extremely overwhelming

[@PhantomPlaymaker25]

I started Yu-Gi-Oh from DM era and ended after GX. I returned just when ARC-V started. I missed on so many things, I had to learn brand new Pendulum Summoning, understand current meta of that time and had to catch up with Synchro and Xyz, while at the same time retain what I already knew in DM-GX era. It was overwhelming sometimes, but also the love for the game kept me going. I learned bit by bit and still continue playing the game to this day. Rewatching / watching anime helped, even though the game differs from the OCG/TCG and they do illegal moves quite a lot, but the core game and mechanics are there. It especially helped with figuring out some similar or exact combos and figuring out how Synchro, Xyz and Pendulum Summoning work. One of my friends wanted to learn how to play Yu-Gi-Oh and another friend started to explain modern era stuff, which of course overwhelmed and scared off the person who was intrigued with the card game. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh has evolved a lot from what it was years ago. I think that newcomers should be taught bit by bit, even if it's just old Yu-Gi-Oh and incrementally go from there. They would not be as competitive as other players, but it can be a start, let them enjoy casual game too. Throwing someone in something that is all over the place and too complex to figure out from a fresh page is difficult.

[@TheDjdeath45]

One of the easier decks to come out, is flunder, there combos are straight forward, normal, search, normal, search, tribute, search, set, is basically most of the deck, after that, knowing when to flip trap is more match up knowledge than the deck being hard, but thats the only deck I can think of that's pretty easy to get into, which is saying alot

[@TheKaijudist]

But it's a deck whose entire gimmick is to entirely circumvent a core summoning rule, and eff around with the banished zone despite it ostensibly being the place cards are supposed to be removed for good. Sure l, someone new can learn the deck, but it's like teaching someone the rules to baseball and explaining the infield fly rule before how to steal

[@ZackSparks]

As a Magic player coming into yugioh it was very frustrating jumping to the hyper quick effect heavy meta of YGO vs the slow chess-like methodical style of MTG.. the biggest example is this newest MTG set Dominaria United is the FIRST MAGIC SET to have no vanilla monsters and its kind of a culture shock jumping from the best monsters having two lines of ability text to a world where if there isn't a paragraph your monster is essentially useless

[@RunesCraft]

I’m trying to work my way up to competing at regionals after a 5 year break from the game. 10 years since I played with physical cards. I’d say it took me almost 6 months to learn the meta. I also got my gf into the game starting on an easy to learn Gravekeeper deck. She’s tired of losing so we upgraded to Marincess and it’s a struggle for her to learn all the new link combos. Going from searchers and fusion summons to link climbing is a learning curve in itself.

[@rosariocrimson]

I think I know exactly what you mean. I started Master Duel with a general idea of the modern rules, the latest decks I'm familiar with are from Yugioh GX season 1 era, and like very early Zexal era. I've gone through a lot of the solo duel stuff where you get introduced to a bunch of archetypes, and almost all of them just go straight over my head, since they just give you a rough intro on what sort of stuff the archetype does, and then just immediately drops you in with the deck and I feel like a seven year old that doesn't know what I'm playing again. I'm good with general theming, like a Dragon deck, a warrior deck, spellcaster deck, etc. but mostly I just fumble around with these more refined theme decks, which I can only get away with in Master Duel because the UI holds your hand a bit by showing you your options and not allowing you to do things incorrectly (like double normal summons as a bare bones example.)

[@professionalwaffleiron]

I agree with the points about legacy support. When I first started playing which was in 2020 the cards that caught my eye the most were the blue eyes cards and my first "deck" was the saga of blue eyes structure deck. I will say though that structure deck is good for learning the basics as it's more of a simpler strategy that being summoning blue eyes, compared to decks like albaz strike or even cyberstrike where the strategies are very long and sometimes confusing for new players. If people who are looking to get into the game saw a structure deck that has blue eyes on it compared to albaz strike, they're probably gonna pick the blue eyes one because the card is more recognizable than albaz strike because blue eyes white dragon is more or less the face of yugioh to people who don't know much about the game.

[@gabrielsalahi3656]

I play more than 9 different card games so I’ve definitely picked up the skill of being able to teach them to other people But even for me YuGiOh can still be tricky to teach The easiest way to teach new players would be to ignore what Chains are and what priority is. Just tell them the phases (ignoring stand by) explain to them what a monster is, a spell, and a trap. How to use each of them. Then you explain normal and special summons and then you explain the extra deck which is surprisingly easy. After that you tell them how attacking works and that’s kind of everything …everything for them to play a practice match against you and realize damn, wtf is going on

[@tyllisvfx]

Ive recently been teaching yugioh to a friend and the first thing I showed is chains and when/if differences. Imo if they don't quit after explaining what solemn judgement can and can't negate then they wont find the game complicated.

[@gabrielsalahi3656]

@@tyllisvfx ☠️ Solemn Judgement rulings. Good luck

[@dee2273]

Having to teach myself this game from scratch I had to use duel links to guide me though the extra deck summonings. Reddit also helped a lot. I learned links on the fly thanks to master duel. Now I can understand the jargon certain things make sense, but still this game really isn't that accessible. I've played the pokemon tag and honestly I had an easier time learning it than I did learning yugioh

[@dalazo]

As someone who played casually back in the early years (and was one of the few of anyone I knew who actually used the rules aswell) and only played the games going forward (here and there). Issue I have is picking an archetype or even choosing what to design my deck around. There are so many different decks to make at this stage it feels impossible to know everything and hence makes it feel impossible to make a deck surrounding a card or type. Ofc I can fallback on these "old" stupid decks like burn decks, exodia or just beatdown. Only deck I ever played was Amazon (yup..) and that has like the worst support in the world seeing only one card is good and in todays yugioh it's not even close to being anything but fun to play. Identity is really something I suffer with and has made it almost uninsterested to actually go out and buy some specific cards so I can build a deck and play some people since I have no idea what I want to do. Like pendulum doesn't look that interesting to me, but what do i know? I barely know how the mechanic works. Same with synchro heavy decks etc. I feel Link and XYZ are easier to imagine being part of my decks due the summon requirments but then we fall into the pit of which monster. Since there are so many cards (and unlike back in the day, most cards atleast do something and can even be good without being the staple card everyone uses). Also if anything as a noobie I prefer the decks that are NOT red-eyes, blue-eyes or dark magician based even if it's something I know from the good ol' days. I find the more newer cards I see or even decks that I get suprised about how I enjoy aspects of those decks. Ofc previous mentioned decks also got changed, but I feel like with all the old school support it's really hard to gravitate towards other decks seeing Konami slaps you in the face with it.

[@arrowstrike1174]

Some problems I had when I was trying to get in was covid lock downs starting that same week, and online yugioh having such a high bar to even play. Covid shut down the one card shop near me that actually had tables set up, and the one time I went there to look around, no one was there. Online yugioh was horrible trying to get into. The only other person I has ever dueled was my brother, who didn't have very good decks. I tried recreating a deck I liked in Duel Links and it was stomped on. Master Duel came out and I was hoping it wasn't filled with sweats. My first dozen matches were against floodgate spamming Eldlich. I got into this game expecting to have fun and so far, 'fun' is only possible if you join the play the meta.

[@darknessnight1115]

Yugiboomer who checked out around Synchros. Came back and got XYZ and hand traps well. Links were okay and pendulums took a while to get. I got back in “casual decks” with a modern touch. I love Sacred Beasts and Cyber Dragons. I wish Ancient Gears were better. I wish I had been around for DragonRulers and not TeleDAD

[@roadhouse98ej]

I definitely agree i got in just few months with live twins and found so confusing and playing against scythe lock and dealing with utopic future of it taking my monster cause i used affect and learning trouble sunnys no target pop doesn’t even hit utopic but what im trying to get to is that there is so much in game when i last played when i was kid and makes me think how cool but also how complex and hard for new people unless they are willing to keep playing even tho its hard to understand some affects and the text

[@TioCosa123]

I actually spend time teaching a friend of mine how to play yugioh, but to explain her properly the mecanics, I found myself teaching her GOAT format first, I maed a bunch of different goat decks, and progresivly start adding new sumoning mecanics, untill she learn how to use her extra deck properly, it was a difficult task and everything in order for her to ultimately like mystic mine decks, cause they are easier to play.

[@Rhapsdos]

Honestly, I think Konami has given up on making paper YGO accessible and are using Master Duel to onboard people. Before Master Duel, I only ever watched KZbin videos about YuGiOh and hadn't touched any paper YGO card in over a decade. Since Master Duel came out, I learned how to actually play the game, and now am caught up, and know all the major mechanics of the game. I'm definitely much more likely to consider getting into the TCG now as opposed to before Master Duel.

[@geminimaxxim]

Just the other day, I was explaining modern Yugioh to my friend, who hadn't really paid attention since 5Ds. Just Link Monsters alone took like 15 minutes of explanation and clarification for her to fully understand. My own position on the edge of the bubble is pretty annoying too. Back in the Zexal era I played a pretty slow Spell Counter deck, and jumping back in nowadays I've optimized it with newer cards and Link Monsters and such. Against proper modern decks, it's absolutely useless. But to most of my friends, who are most familiar with 2005-2010 Yugioh, my deck is an impossible obstacle for them. It really illustrates the size of the divide between the outside and inside.

[@nytecrow6452]

I agree with you but that's why I play lower tiers with friends that are even less Combo-Intensive Decks like my Myutants. Myutant Basic Combo is NS Myutant 01, search ST-46, tribute 01 and banish a card to summon Beast from Deck. End combo, unless you have the field then you can SS St-46 and search a Spell/Trap. The only major explanation is explaining Beast's immunity to Monster Effects and he can Banish to Negate one spell. And even the Boss Monster is easy to understand. Miniboss can make himself immune to a Card Type once per turn, and the big one can Negate and Banish OPT.

[@DaemonRayge]

I personally would say Duel Links and Speed Duels are a decent way for players to learn mechanics. However, I feel that also leads to a lot of bad habits and gameplay traps because the format and gameplay is entirely different from full on master rule Duels.

[@honestreaming6292]

YOUR SMOKE ALARM PAUL!!! ITS BEGGING FOR HELP!!! REPLACE ITS BATTERIES PLEASE

[@hayhay2640]

So as someone who was a new player around last year this was my experience playing locals in my area for 3 weeks(playing pure shaddolls). I even though communicated me being a new player most people were nice but i had a few experiences that turned me away i recall a player who refused to say anything but acused me of slow playing which i was not appreciative considering im trying to understand how a combo was working and he wouldnt explain just had me read the card. Next i had a player accuse me of cheating when i misspoke about grabbing a wendi which i didnt even have to declare for reference. As i would later learn speaking to other people the two people that ruined it for me are super competitive players and i guess couldnt imagine a new player just trying to learn the game. And thats how as a new player i was treated in my local community havent spent a dime since on yugioh enjoying master duel a bit but went to magic and didnt have those experiences stuck around.

[@AstralLaVista]

I've taught maybe 3 people since I became competitive, and every time I have to ask them if the want to play the game well, or do it their own way and learn on their own, but also make it clear if they do it their own way it'll be harder than if you jump head first into the jargon, even though the jargon is confusing

[@Zeta1127]

I have been out of the Yu-Gi-Oh! loop for a while now. I stopped casually playing with my brother around GX, he played Dark Magician and I played Blue-Eyes, thanks to getting Sorcerer of Dark Magic and Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, respectively, from Pyramid of Light. The last product I got was Structure Deck Saga of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, so I was already familiar with Synchro Monsters. I ended up getting Legacy of the Duelist on Switch and Duel Links, so I kept up with the Extra Deck mechanics over the last few years. Master Duel finally allowed me to play modern Blue-Eyes and Dark Magician, while slowly working on building other decks. The problem is the modern meta is not fun, everything revolves around preventing your opponent from playing the game with hand traps, flood gates, and negates. I haven't even been able to enjoy the latest Blue-Eyes support, because I haven't pulled any Blue-Eyes Jet Dragon or Dictator of D. yet.

[@Meat_Skraps]

This is why I like Speed Duel, and between friends, can easily be adapted to a goats-ish full deck format. No 2 hour combo chains either. It also seems to be a LOT easier to get the cards you need. I have a playset for probably 98% of the cards printed so far (rarity not considered). Thus, I can introduce friends if need be and treat it like a board game with them using my cards. I even have it all organized according to set instead of archetype. I still get suckered into TCG cards, but know that I'll probably never play it. I'm just not willing to drop $20-100 per staple card. For example, I would love to play a Ra deck, but all its core support cards (like EG Slime and Ancient Chant) are each in that ridiculous price point. BEWD and DM have the same issues. I like the simplicity if Speeds better. I'd love to see a simplified/reboot in VR now that standalone systems like MetaQuest2 has been improving, but without insane loot box/pack systems. Make the players earn their cards, but also able to enjoy in single player more.

[@N.G.H.]

A friend played the game back in its earlier "cave man" days and was shocked to see how the texts can be overwhelming or card names can get to be 6 or 7 words long. They wanted to get back into the game and asked me for something easy to play to help learn the mechanics. They only know of fusion and synchro but have never played with them before or even put them to use. And they aren't familiar of XYZ, pendalum, and Links so it gives me an idea of when they last experienced the game whether it was between two players or the anime on TV or whatever. I had them buy a couple Shaddoll structure decks and I mixed in some Invoked for them just so they'd have a deck to bring along when we go to the card shop to hangout with my other friends and so far they seem to really enjoy it. Even the element charmers with splashable engines are a good enough structure deck for new people to experience the game or a few years back the monarch structure deck with pandeity and the ultimate conductor tyranno structure decks were perfect for new players cuz they're strong enough to hold their own and helped new players get access to cards that aren't over the top heavy with texts and are part of extensive combos.

[@travismiller1491]

You're 100% right. I'm 28 from Australia and I used to play as a kid with my toon deck (which I don't have because my stepdad lit on fire). So recently I saw the obeslisk/slifer decks for sale and I brought them $30 one for myself and my friend. Then we found master duel on ps5. Then we realised we have no idea what to do. We can't duel online because people just chain and link and link and chain and I'm dead before I get a turn. We just built a toon deck and magician deck and play eachother like that. It's too overwhelming to learn. It's way way too much and too many types.

[@windblownleaf6450]

Master duel really needs a pve mode like dual links. Most people dont like to pvp, they find it stressful to experiment in that setting, as do i. Something like an anime esque story mode where you can play with custom decks or just some ai opponents you can grind for cheap resources would be a great include. Also, a legacy mode (classic cards only, gx cards only etc. would be a big help)

[@vla1ne]

One of the things i try to do when dealing with new players, is run decks that encourage/reward interactions. I trynot to whip out the top tier stuff, and have several decks that teach different aspects of the game in new ways. For people i trust, i actually have several decks that i built specifically to be "simple" to use/play against for others.

[@adamortega1]

Would you mind elaborating on this? I’d love to be able to do the same

[@vla1ne]

@@adamortega1 i run about 20 different decks, and apart from a few that i legitimately play competitive with or built just to build (infermoids, spright, cardians, ect), i try to make sure that most of the cards in them are the "fair" and interactive type (and in the case of the decks i'm willing to lend out, nothing that's above a certain value). It's a bit hard to explain, as it's something that i've just been doing automatically for years, but decks that have specific functions to them, like synchro spam that isn't _just_ baronne, but also still makes powerful boards. Or the traptrix deck, which is slower, but helps teach about summon timing. I use odd eyes to teach about pendulum, as at its' core it's just "make big lizards who make bigger lizards" which appeals to the inner unga bunga. There's also time thiefs who teach xyz plays, raidraptors, which i teach rankup plays through, and i try to teach grave management via skull servants. List goes on (been playing from the start), but that's the gist of it. I build decks in ways that focus on certain aspects, while still being notably powerful.

[@joaogarcia6170]

Yeah, it took me like a year and a half to play the game in any reasonable level. Master duel could have a progression campaign where you play duelist alliance/new challengers format as an intro to the modern format, then TOSS format to cement their knowledge on combos and handtraps. Maybe it could also be an online format where you can play those decks for the players who want to play online. We could also just do it as a community, have local Goat and Duelist alliance formats for beginners to play (as far as i remember the cards aren't even that expensive). Maybe have a channel on discord where you can also play it in MD, YGOPRO or Dueling Book.

[@sayrux8897]

agreed yugioh is really hard for new player i think i can be onsidered quite new too start watch anime 3-4 years ago DM>GX>ARC-V>Vrains>ZEXAL and start duel link 3 years ago then go to YGO pro 2 years ago (before MR20) and wondering why i cant link summon decode even tho i have 2 monster it says 2+ so i should be can link summon (yeah back then i just start vrains and dont understand how link rate work) what missing timing etc and havent got any idea bout handtrap until master duel even now i still dont really understand what is missing timing (not like im using "when" efect monster so wont be problem), and not really good playing some combo deck (ex:halqidon,speedroid)

[@johnathonrouse7581]

Generally the main way that I can kinda overcome when getting people into the game is to tell prospective players that it's ok to not know every aspect roght away. I typically tell them to focus on one deck with one summoning style. Then expand to other decks in that style and so forth so forth. Chop ot up into bite sized pieces

[@Dizaster1995]

As someone trying to get back into Yu-Gi-Oh in earnest... I can say deck building is a nightmare! Trying to think of all the combos as your building, know what card ratios of your searchers and stuff, or even what cards will help or harm an archetype you may barely know how they work can be really stressful.

[@scribdfukkyu9630]

building a deck is the most fun aspect of any card game imo

[@algar6616]

Havent played since elementary or middle school, and honestly from just peeking at how things are now I don’t think I’ll ever play again I just like hearing people talk about niche communities so I watch aps plus In my estimation yuhioh is too far gone to ever be “beginner friendly” again without massively upsetting all the people who have stuck with it thru the years. Seems the days of 8 year olds making up the rules as they go along and getting them almost right are behind us

[@luchotenks2310]

Now it's 8 year old kids who design the cards. Don't believe me? Look at the power creep and tell me if that wasn't the product of giving full creative liberty to a kid who just got introduced to Yugioh Card Maker. Balanced card design has long since been dead. I left the game both online and irl for like 2 years. When I came back a few days ago, I tried to get used to the new meta by testing it against the AI's top decks. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the infamous 8 year old kid that came up with absolute gems of balanced card design such as Thunder Dragon Colossus, Red Eyes Dark Dragoon and Destroy Phoenix Enforcer, has now been hired full time and tasked with the creation of new archetypes. I took a quick glance at the monstrosities he came up with in Yugioh Card Maker and immediately knew I was in for a crazy ride in this power creep rollercoaster. Take for example the new archetype called Kshatri-la. A bunch of badass looking Level 7 monsters with 2k+ ATK that special summon themselves from the hand for free. Of course they would do that. If they didn't, how else would you use your normal summon for Aleister the Invoker? Do people even play that engine anymore? Imagine using your normal summon in the year 2022 lmao. Anyway, half of these monsters special summon themselves via inherent special summons and the other half through Quick Effects so good luck preventing them from hitting the field. And if you just so happen to be one of those Yugi-boomers who enjoy doing your normal summons, the archetype's Continuous Spell has got you covered. It lets you normal summon the level 7 monsters with zero tributes. Levels don't mean shit anymore. Everything automatically summons itself for free. By the way, this Spell also works as a Monster Reborn each turn because why not? You can never have too many free revival effects in modern Yugioh. Redundancy be damned. Here, have a Continuous Trap card with the copy pasted revival effect of the Continuous Spell. I mean, it's technically different because this one also lets you look at and banish cards from your opponent's hand. But it's all fine because Traps are slow and therefore balanced, I guess. At least they made them searchable, just like everything else in this archetype. By the way, it is not modern Yugioh either unless you cram the effects of multiple Spells and Traps on a single Effect monster. It's almost as if they are trying to see what's the smallest font size they can get away with printing. Bonus points if the aforementioned effects have no cost at all and can be triggered as easily as blinking. Fortunately for us, the prodigious 8 year old card designer delivered in this regard as well. This archetype's free beatsticks give you both free and immediate card advantage and the best form of spot removal the game has ever seen in the form of banishing face-down. Did I mention both of these effects can be used each turn, even during your opponent's turn? The Extra Deck monsters are nothing to sneeze at either. They are 2 Level 7 Xyz monsters that might as well be Rank 4 due to how easy to summon they are. One of them is a 3K DEF wall that blocks your opponent's card zones every time you banish their stuff face-down (which is basically all the time with this deck) and is somehow not a hard once per turn. It also has built-in protection to destruction because, why not? Oh, and it also soecial summons more level 7 monsters from the deck each turn for free. The other Xyz is a 3K ATK Dark Law with a free spot removal Quick Effect that gains more materials every time you banish your opponent's stuff. I might be reaching a little bit here, but it seems that adding insult to injury was the design philosophy behind this archetype. I can't wait to see what the power creep of other archetypes is like. I've been hearing lovely things about Tearlaments and Sprights.

[@algar6616]

@@luchotenks2310 love your passion mate

[@XiongysaurasRex]

I been playing pure punk ever since they got a field spell and I been loving it. Draw 2 and a special summon from hand is amazing.

[@paulfitzgerald762]

I’ve only played master duel. I’ve played a lot though. I wonder how confused I would be in a TCG format locals. Great video as always! Thanks for sharing your perspective

[@HolymanChurch]

So I am a returning player from watching the OG anime and my brother player Masterduel. I think they have over complicated Yugioh with having both Syncro and link summoning. I think I know how it works but its so scary when you try to get back into the game and you see different coloured cards that have different summoning methods.

[@garethdewhurst1499]

Heh, I play super casually with some friends, old school stuff until recently when one of them said "we should learn the new stuff and make some new decks". So I agreed, I made a cyber dragon deck (I know that's not really new but it has xyz summons and links so I am counting it) and combined 3 albaz strike structure decks and my partner decided to go with Marincess. I am pretty good with the online research. Two of our friends on the other hand just went and built random decks from cards they browsed through at the local store (one sort of went evil swarm and the other one went with random dragons including chaos max dragon)....now apparently my partner and I take too long when we play, our turns are confusing and our decks are overpowered, and I end up having to referee games (yes, I know your Max dragon says it can't de destroyed or targeted, but this is a non targeted banish, its different, yes it is...no it is...look I don't make up the rules).

[@edgarrodriguez3607]

I agree with a lot of this video. I recently got back into Yu-Gi-Oh! during Covid-19 and was to a certain extent confused with a lot of game mechanics. I am 27 Years old and the truth is that many people coming back into Yu-Gi-Oh! around my age group are coming back to childhood attachments (Card artwork, anime, etc.) and a vast majority come back to Yu-Gi-Oh! with Yu-Gi-Oh!'s first season game mechanics in mind. I could definitely see that Konami is indeed trying to help out with Structure Decks (Many of these structure decks are actually really good and really well thought out out of the box) and these past 3 years Konami has literally printed deck cores in the Mega Tins. Lately I've just accepted that I can't win them all and I rather take losses to degenerate combos knowing I have in depth knowledge of the theme/archetypes I play with and knowing I can beat decks that rely on exploiting cards like Water Enchantress package, Crystron Halqifibrax or Predaplant Verte. My favorite decks/archetypes to play with are Cyber Dragon, Floowandereeze, Rokket/Borrel/Dragonlink, Gravekeeper's, Familiar-Possessed, Heros (Masked and Elemental Hero), and Code Talkers. Playing with Floowandereeze and Rokkets has really helped me understand Chain blocking and how chain linking with quick-play spells, traps, quick-play monster effects, etc. work. I'll leave it with this. Can't win em' all. And as many sports athletes have said - it is through constant trial and error, constant "failure" that one begins to understand and "succeed". Michael Jordan once said "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

[@thereaversden6847]

This is why I love floodgate builds. My experience in Yu-gi-oh comes from the early days. All the combo cards today confuse the evaliving out of me. But by playing floodgate style builds I can simplify the game and objectively nullify much of the modern Metas while using mediocre monsters to chip away at my opposition. It's definitely a complicated game and takes time to learn all the nuances of each build.

[@bl00by_]

5:30 Sorry to break it to you, but no the nostalgia bait is not what sales the products (most of the time). Konami knows that they can't sell products just with nostalgia bait, that's why they either put in staples like they did with Magician's Souls a few years ago. Or they put cards which are hard to get into the sets like collectors rares or ghost rares. (And yes Souls is a dark magician support card, but let's be real they definetley knew what they were doing while designing the card. It's generic for a reason).

[@simplyyunak3189]

The point of entry for YGO certainly rised. I just revisited my first struckture deck: zombie madness after watching this video. As a new player i was pretty ok with the playstyle of the zombie madness deck without any external help. But if I pick up any new deck today regardless of being a struckture deck or a booster archetype i just have to look up combo tutorials. Mosre ofteb than not i can not figure it out myself to be honest

[@TheNateRule]

I was mainly buying Pokemon cards. I wasn't serious about Yugioh cards, just buying packs at Dollar General for nostalgia reasons. Then I saw your channel and others talk about the game. It was Battle of Chaos, Dawn of Majesty, God structure decks and mega tins that sealed the deal for me to stick around.

[@edwardiris58]

What decks are you playing?

[@TheNateRule]

Nothing really, I'm too scared to play. So I'm just collecting.

[@edwardiris58]

@@TheNateRule I highly recommend finding some people to play causal decks with its a ton of fun

[@shadowrealmintern2550]

I agree my girlfriend recently started getting into yugioh with me and wanted to know what kind of decks she could build but I was a bit hesitant to recommend a specific one as of yet, I think I’ll start her off slow with Monarchs since it’s not too complicated. Feel free to leave suggestions

[@riso08]

I never watched the yugioh anime or played the physical game but a theduellogs video appeared in my recommended sometime in december/january and I just watched a bunch of his videos. I wanted to play so I installed duel links (i played it once because a friend recommended but i only did the tutorial). Looked up a beginner's guide, watched the duel links meta video, built blue eyes cause he recommended it and learnt the game bit by bit. My computer's really slow so I didn't play master duel. I found out it was also available for mobile and installed it. Copied an invoked shadoll deck I found online and played the game (badly, i thought gravity controller was an out for annoying boss monster). Played solo mode and a bit online. I looked up a shaddoll guide, kept on watching videos and now I can say I understand the game pretty well (understand, not play), though it has been my obsession for a few months so I watch a ton of videos, follow twitter accounts and think about it too much. I would recommend Duel Links with a simple deck, watch videos, look up guides and tutorials, immerse yourself in the community (if possible, not everyone has the time), play a deck you like in master duel, play the solo mode because you'll learn the game a bit and you might find new favourites (KARAKURI BAYBEEEE). Don't be afraid to ask for help, play online or enjoyed the game in a different way, be it making custom cards, watching the anime, playing decks you like, playing meta decks or just watching videos without playing the game (that's how i started). If you want to try it, try it! I was procrastinating to play duel links, installed it around Christmas, got a bunch of tickets and was overwhelmed, got covid, said "this is it" and started to play the game! Other people will always complain but just ignore them. Who cares if your deck is really simple? Who cares if it's not good? Who cares if someone thinks yuya is annoying but you just think he's neat? Have fun, find your people and don't be afraid to fail or lose! PS: You can play whatever you want. Duel links, speed duels, master duel, tcg, ocg, manual online simulators, automatic simulators. You're not any less for not playing paper!

[@cactuz7467]

You hit the nail on the head. I played YGO during the “caveman days”, dropped it mid GX, and now trying to get back in it. From what I’ve been seeing, it has evolved into a technical game of chicken - it’s heavily influenced by strategy, links, and technical knowledge more than ever. Like you said, it’s not that the evolution of the game is good or bad, it’s just that the barrier of entry has been cemented thicker due to the variety of technical components introduced to the game. From a business sense, Speed Duel is a smart way to recruit new players to the game, however, the og crowd may not have the time and patience as they did to learn all of the new components.

[@Krethean]

I personally feel Yugioh back around Synchro to XYZ era was a decent time to get into Yugioh. I wanna say Goat/Edison eras. Cause there's less stuff going on, combos aren't the be-all, and you could pick a deck archtype you like and have fun with it. And you could choose what kind of Extra Deck you want, if at all. Yugioh presently is generally a whole lot of moving parts and combos (as mentioned) and as someone who got back into Yugioh more heavily in the past year (I stopped a bit after Lord of Tachyon Galaxy and only dabbled a little two-three years ago when my friends looked to play it again. Got into the Ancient Warriors Deck because I enjoy the RoTK theme immensely... then stopped till I got int omaster Duel), I find the change in playstyle overall was quite a bit of whiplash for me. Also a little saddening that I can't really just try an archtype so much and have fun, since I'd be more waiting for my turn cause hand traps and omni negates are more or less mandatory. Sure, adapt, cave to the meta and carry on, but I always took an interest in playing decks that aren't the meta, and I kind of feel Yugioh today doesn't really allow for that so much. I suppose I could be wrong, but again, as someone who returned to Yugioh in the last year with Master Duel, it doesn't feel as enjoyable to pick up a archtpe, make a deck and have fun.

[@thekittenfreakify]

This goes in hand with the enviornment we are starting to see this format. Decks are becoming more versatile since 5-7 years ago. A consequence of this combo lines have gotten more convoluted and decision making has been getting more relative to whst you are olayong against since decks each hyper focus on a game state. Same for price. I have noticed the reprint policy jas changed somewhat so that also makes it hard. I think some streamlining of the game is meeded. I think rush duel has been experimenting with this heavily with how theu format the card text.

[@Fru1tSamura1]

I know exactly what you mean. In my personal experience I wanted to try the game after stopping playing mtg. So my first thought was "OK I know yugioh is archetype dependant, and I know cyber dragons were cool back in the day so let's look for Cyber dragon decks." I had a friend who plays regularly kind of show me the game through playing it and my God it was rough, I didn't know how things chained, I didn't know what "lines" to follow with my cards in hand and I just mimicked what other people said to do. Eventually I figured out my deck and went to try with others at a local game and got stomped so hard by what I thought were crazy cards (it was just the staples and some crazy boss monsters I could do nothing about) About that time cyber strike came out and I was ecstatic cause new cyber dragon support so I really think that helped me stay in the game but I feel bad for new people who pick a archetype thinking it's gimmick is fun only to get stomped at locals. It's a stark difference from mtg, cause while mtg has some crazy cards, they all are about the same power level more or less

[@murraymon]

I got back into Yugioh when links came out after leaving around syncro era, and there was just so much to catch up on i still haven’t really bothered learning to compete cuz it feels like there are so many cards that do random things and people just say “i activate this cards effect” without explaining what it is cu they just expect you to know, and you have to read a wall of text to get to the 2 lines they are talking about and then they do it again with another card on and on for a 10 min combo that’s now 20min cuz they have to stop and explain what each card does

[@zacharyjames4121]

This is what I liked about duel links when I got back into the series. Yes, it was a lot more limited, but it helped me understand basic plays and combo strategies a bit better. The game does like to hold your hand, but it really helped me as a player nowadays

[@gingeramongus3138]

My recent run through Legacy of the Duelist, Challenge Duels are a slog to get through with the A.I. having turns that feel like 5 min turns, for its combo. But I also jumped back to Yugioh Forbidden Memories where the game was not accurate to the actual card game, but it was more fun to play in comparison.

[@snuggstcg]

I genuinely think every card game that I've played has been more accessible than Yu-Gi-Oh can be. I play Yu-Gi-Oh in paper twice a week, and online almost daily, and I still can't tell you how half the decks would combo. That being said, I'm very much back into the game, before master duel the last deck I played was gravekeeper pure in like 07/08 🤣

[@TheAnimeMegaFreak]

i would this be the reason for me to play some old yugioh games for nostalgic and to take a break from competitive. so in other words; when i am playing yugioh tag force, it is putting me in a handicap from competitive and forces me to experiment with some old cards and play gimmick style or themes and make like your own fanfic character decks with the function of dueling a AI that can use what decks u made. i would like Konami would release old yugioh games like duelist of the roses and have a online multiplayer function to duel with friends and maybe that other players can make some complicated strategy rather than beat downs. pick ur fav monster and build a deck with that monster or arcetype

[@krsthummus]

So I’ve always played yugioh with friends growing up throughout my life without ever know what the competitive scene was or release of new cards. Just playing with DM-5Ds mess of cards. I didn’t start ACTUALLY playing the game until duelist alliance my senior year of high school . Trying to learn pendulums was actually the most fun I’ve ever had playing this game, yes it is a completely different mechanic but not difficult to learn imo.

[@loganTwon]

I’ve been researching for the past month and quit playing around the time of synchros and stardust. The amount mental effort that goes into the game now is just insane. Even what you said about the cyber dragon stuff, the amount of searching and moves that go into getting cyber end out is nuts. I try to watch tutorials but unless you invest hours upon hours and practice duel with people you know,you won’t learn.

[@sig702]

It definitely is mentally taxing. Not sure how people even find this game fun today when everyone ends their turn with near identical negate boards. I wonder if people only play because it's the only thing they are good at rather than having fun.

[@Daldi564]

I would say that when I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2019, I was outside of the "bubble". I didn't know what Link Monsters were (or the dreaded Master Rule 4) and I basically went in with a HERO deck I threw together using cards from the HERO Strike Structure Deck and cards that hadn't seen the light of day for about 6 years at that point. Ever since, I've learned the jargon, wised up to the meta game and have come to accept my deck's identity as a rogue brew. I know my deck won't consistently win, but it does it feels electric. I managed to go 3-1 at locals this weekend so I'm clearly doing something right. I do think that starter decks need to have better staples in order to educate people both new and coming back to the game about the wider intricacies of the game. People coming in should at least be warned about hand traps and how to properly counter them. It took me a while to learn it and I effectively jumped in the deep end.

[@TLHGONZO]

I play Yugioh with my son. I taught him years ago and, like most children, he picked up on it fairly quickly. Even to this day, we still get confused with certain rulings and combos.

[@tristanalain9239]

And this is why I even as a former player advocate for physical Rush Duel stuff. It is a great on ramp. I also advocate heavily that Konami should make both the frames and cars text layout from Rush Duel and make it universal. Having the Condition, Cost and effect for all cards clearly denoted in the text with a new line beginning for each would be a great for new players to come in, and help with a lot of more confusing shit. Particularly for things like the forthcoming Dark World Structure Deck.

[@darcytoews8841]

Was playing at a local tournament recently with a guy that plays both MTG and Yugioh. He had a fairly combo heavy deck and I had a control/board breaking deck. As we were going back and forth we ended up having this crazy interaction that got complicated enough we had to call a judge. The judge explained how the interaction would unfold and my opponent turned to me and said, "I thought MTG was supposed to be the more complicated card game. This just broke me!" I just had to laugh and blurted out, "This isn't even Yugioh's final form!"

[@donmega5887]

Been getting back into yugioh since playing it as a kid. There is so much to learn, I've put together a 3X structure deck and I'm STILL kind of nervous to go to a locals. There is a lot To learn until I'll feel comfortable in a paper match against someone i guess. Wish there were yugioh coaches. Channels like this are a big help I will say.

[@SilentHillWomble]

I got back into yugioh last year after only watching and playing it when I was a kid. I found legacy of the duelist an easy way to get back into it as you can learn different mechanics based on the series. And then watching team aps and duel logs helpful by showing different card strategies

[@Commodore128]

This issue reminds me of when my friend (who doesn't play Yugioh, we typically play Magic) was watching me play Master Duel a bit, and all he could say was a sarcastic "Wow. Looks fun." Honestly I see where he's coming from with that statement, but it still made me chuckle a bit.

[@zeemaster99]

I can't help but agree. I'm a very casual player, I don't play at locals, I don't play Duel Links or Master Duels, I only play Yu-Gi-Oh with 1 friend and I've been playing with him for over a decade. I run a Red-Eyes, Blue-Eyes, and Dark Magician deck out of nostalgia and intentionally run bad monsters (like Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon). I still buy singles or packs when I see a card that would fit well in my dumb gimmick decks vs my friend, but I'm in no way aware of the meta. I'm aware enough to know things like 'people are mad at mystic mine' but can't really tell you why, even after reading the card effect since I don't know what ridiculous meta ways people are incorporating it. But even at my casual, relatively removed level (the outermost layer of the bubble), I still can't recommend the game to people outside of the bubble because there's a lot of cards to learn and nuanced rules to parse for a beginner to grasp easily. I'm playing at a very casual level and have been for over a decade but I still find myself having to go online to determine how a specific effect would play out under certain circumstances. It's just a bit much for a beginner, imo.

[@folcra]

automated simulators like edo are godsends for learning interactions. my friend started playing recently and he is learning really fast.

[@MerchantGhost]

One of my best memories is being able to teach my GRANDMOTHER how to play YGO, because she was interested in why we liked it so much. YGO used to be simple enough that my grandmother was able to play a Chaos deck fairly competently. The biggest problem with YGO is definitely the crazy barrier to entry. I myself haven't played physically since Synchro era, but I keep up with the game through creators like APS and the video games. I consider myself to be at the highest end of the spectrum of understanding the game a casual player can be at without entering competitive territory, but whenever I come back to the game after having left for even just like 3 or 4 months, I don't feel like reading the equivalent of a Lord of The Rings novel to understand what all the new shit does. And even if someone is willing and able to pick up and learn the game, in my experience, they leave VERY shortly after finding out that every game is decided by who can build a board of negates first to bar the opponent off from actually playing the game. It's not fun.

[@Lucifer_isthereal_god]

I wanted to help my brothers get into it. But with there being so damn much they burned out fast. Of course I was willing and wanted to learn and taught myself they were only casually interested. I thought Master Duel would have a good teaching experience that could be skipped for us experienced players but that was way to basic to help anyone.

[@seankelly6620]

Yeah I was one of those until a few years ago, got into Duel Links and slowly learned all the modern themes and game mechanics. Plus the Anime Skills really hooked me in

[@KeonVioletWilkins]

I guess it's easier to get newer players into something like Vanguard, Magic, etc because the effects, costs, and basic card information can often be tied into symbols or key words. Kinda wish the bullet points from the OCG were more common in texts that allow for them to break up the text instead of making these massive run on sentences that take a bit to explain to someone unfamiliar with the cards.