Can Yu-Gi-Oh! Use Keywords Like Magic the Gathering? - A Conversation on Card Text | Game Design

[@greedtheron8362]

I am amazed by YuGiOh's ability to do nearly the exact opposite of every other card game and still be somewhat functional with a fat playerbase.

[@Draw5Move5]

@greed Theron This is one of the reasons I talk about it so much in my examples - not only is it familiar to me, but in many ways it defies all laws of physics when it comes to traditional game design. I think it's a reminder that sometimes, the old standbys should be challenged, redone, and experimented with. Not always, mind you, but we never get amazing new games and ideas if we don't question the old ones.

[@marioli2463]

@@Draw5Move5 no thats because it has a very successful cross sectional marketing plan t

[@revimfadli4666]

The power of anime marketing

[@Kampfender_Krieger]

There is value in having a very complex game. Making it more accessible won't necessarily benefit the game, as it would take away from the learning experience.

[@revimfadli4666]

@@Kampfender_Krieger agreed, though there's emergent complexity, and then there's barrier to entry

[@ccheart8574]

And the thing is, the handheld YuGiOh games DO THIS. YGO: Legacy of the Duelist for the Switch and the last DS game, HAVE search functions FOR these card effects. You can pull up a drop-down menu with icons and CHOOSE these effects. Indestructible, for example, has an icon of Marshmallon, the iconic monster for the indestructable battle effect. Parshath's ability, in that drop-down, is just called 'piercing'. It's an actual categorized ability and keyword that's applied TO the card, without being explicitly ON the card as you're suggesting. (This is me saying I agree these could just be added to the cards for easy referencing.)

[@fireblade295]

So, just like how the show left out any summons and only had normal summon (EVEN for a 4 star), YGO games don't match with the physical TCG? Why do people like this?

[@IamGrimalkin]

When they said indestructible in the video though, that doesn't include mashmallon, since he meant can't be destroyed by card effect rather than battle.

[@IamGrimalkin]

​@@fireblade295 The shows 100% had more than normal summoning. The original duel monsters manga had fusion and ritual summoning (although they worked differently), and other special summoning existed too with stuff like reborn. Other summoning mechanics came in the sequel series of the anime.

[@dennisflanders1957]

Yu-Gi-Oh wants to avoid "geekspeak" then goes and uses a ton of them like "quick-effect" "link" "counter trap (vs regular)", and so on. Like they're easy terms to get a hold of but "geekspeak" none the less.

[@TimothyGod]

The only problem with your comment is that those are legit terms used by Konami. So what ar you talking about? Quick effect, most cards that have it will say it. Link, link monsters, that's easy. Counter traps are completely different from normal traps. Anything else?

[@revimfadli4666]

@@TimothyGod it's not whether or not Konami uses them, it's the fact they still use geekspeak anyway despite claiming to avoid it

[@Kampfender_Krieger]

@@revimfadli4666 How is quick effect and counter trap geekspeak ? These are very literal words

[@revimfadli4666]

@@Kampfender_Krieger are synchro summon, pendulum etc as literal as those?

[@Dakka-do4cu]

@@revimfadli4666 Those are game mechanics and a type of card. There's a difference between something like trampling and a Synchro.

[@FluffalKyurem]

I've become all to familiar with "missing the timing" as I'm an Ancient Gear player. A key card of the deck, Geartown, has strong effect that summons any archetypal monster from anywhere, but the card says "when" so it can miss timing in a lot of situations. The newer Ancient Gear cards are worded in a specific way so that they don't cause it to miss timing.

[@Draw5Move5]

@White Kyurem Now imagine liking Gusto and finding out every card you thought would work when used as Syncrho material doesn't because it says "When" instead of "if". We have all been there, and I'm glad at least Konami is making newer support cards for some of these archetypes that let the cards work how we'd hope they would in the modern era

[@chrismiller3548]

Yep I remember playing them back in 2010 and having to set a second geartown to successfully trigger the first ones effect. So annoying lol

[@jaythephoenix]

They just need to equalize "when" and "if." Honestly.

[@chef4846]

@@jaythephoenix doing that would break quite a few cards, making them way stronger than originally intended. So now eqzualizing "if" and "when" suddenly breaks lots of cards originally balanced by being able to miss Timing. Its realy not that easy

[@RealPeasantLord]

Fun fact, there is exactly 1 battle trap that can negate ancient gear monsters attacks that I know of, and it’s Hero Barrier, since you can activate it before the battle phase even starts

[@empressivemagic]

I used to dislike keywords. The way I saw it before: they become pointless since you would have to print Reminder Text on them, otherwise you would have to look them up which complicates the game. Also, the older a game becomes, the more keywords are added, and the harder it becomes to remember each one (such as MtG, which intimidated me with its long list of them). I've since changed my mind on them, realizing that only a handful of MtG's keywords are "evergreen" and always stay in rotation. Reminder text is good for learning, and simpler cards with reminder text are a good teaching tool to help remember. I've always thought of "piercing", "banish", and "excavate" as Yugioh's only "true" keywords (there's room for argument with "unaffected"). They simplify a game action or a broadly applicable card effect into a single unusual but evocative word, the word choice emphasizes/indicates how the effect works, and Yugioh gracefully incorporates them into full sentences to maintain the structure of their card effects. Heck, in the case of excavate, they even made Adamancipators, an archetype of miners that "excavate" Rock monsters to summon them! The existence of the "excavate" keyword absolutely reinforced the theming of it, and with how amazingly varied Yugioh's modern archetype aesthetics can be, I'd love to see it be able to do more unique things like that!

[@Draw5Move5]

@Emily T. That balance is exactly what most games try to strike - a mix of evergreen keywords and some that come up less often, with reminder text when they do. Yugioh could honestly do this if they wanted, there are usually a few lower power, simpler cards in a core set that could hold said reminder text. Also dude the way Adamancipator combined their mechanical function with their theming was ~Chef's Kiss, I'm a sucker for design like that 😊. I'd absolutely love to see more archetypes follow in their footsteps, and pinning that around keywords would be an excellent way to do it.

[@RTU130]

Right

[@NeroVingian40]

Kohdok made a video discussing keywords, and how Magic uses keywords and still make it so that players wouldn’t need to always Google new keywords they encounter. Basically, how Magic does it is they always put keywords with the reminder texts on common cards (the cards players will see the most, they’re common cards). They only omitted the reminder texts on rarer cards, cards that are oftentimes you would see once you’ve spent some more time on the game beyond your first few hours. TLDR; Magic puts reminder texts on common cards that most players will see just because of how common these cards will be in a playing environment, they only omitted those reminder texts on rarer cards that only experienced players will see, more or less.

[@fireblade295]

Glad to see you changed your mind. I would say, instead of Evergreen, I would call it universal. I couldn't see Wizards adding Learn or Ninjutsu to other sets outside their respective sets/planes. Magic is also easier to pick up, as you just need a casual player to help you. YGO however, you need either a novelist or lit prof to explain that mess.

[@ShapelessMonstrosity]

The interesting thing about "excavate" is that it was only a new keyword in English (and other European languages). In Japanese, there was always a distinct term for it (literally translating to "turn over"), in contrast to simply "revealing" cards from the deck. When the OCG created the "Sylvan" archetype, which cared about the distinction between "revealing" cards from the Deck and "turning over" cards from the top of the deck, the TCG was forced to create a new term to distinguish the two actions.

[@aaronbennett3966]

Mill was player slang and then became a keyword. Also Reborn sounds like a good keyword for that mechanic.

[@IamGrimalkin]

Yeah, I think for stuff that's already become slang using keyword might make sense. Yugioh has mill as well (as slang). Besides the ones mentioned in the video, there's also 'bounce' (send from field to to hand) and 'spin' (shuffle into the deck). It might be useful to have a non-destruction send to GY as well, but there's no slang for that (maybe 'pop').

[@IamGrimalkin]

Also OPT and HOPT, although in that case you need to distinguish between 'use' and 'activate' HOPT.

[@vitortakara7090]

@@IamGrimalkin note pop is already used in yugioh as a slang and refers to any effect that targets or not(some effect destruction does not target despite requiring you to declare a monster to taget, this bypass target proctection) specific cards on the field or hand or deck , destroy it and sends it to grave, the key words being destruction and sending to grave if it banishes it's not a pop effect and if it doesn't destroy (just sends or discards a card from hand) is not a pop effect

[@IamGrimalkin]

@@vitortakara7090 'pop' isn't an actual useful keyword for cards though. If it means destroy it can just say "destroy", which we already have (although in my experience 'pop' can refer to effects that don't destroy, like dingirsu's send effect).

[@IamGrimalkin]

@@vitortakara7090 Oh I just realised what my original post was. Yes, I agree, I was wrong to suggest 'pop'. Maybe it might be useful to have a keyword for sending removal though (again, with ding as a an example of this, or golden lord).

[@TheSliferSlacker]

Hello there, Yugioh Guy here (obviously) and I'd like to say that this video is the STRONGEST argument in favour of keywording in Yugioh I've ever heard. Our community tends to be very un-receptive to outside criticism of the game's design, mostly because these types of suggestions always seem to feel like they're coming from a place of acting with superiority or smugness or what have you. This video really does lay things out very nicely in a way that is very in line with existing community mentalities and slang, which I think is far more convincing than any other attempt I've heard. A problem a lot of people run into criticizing Yugioh is that they fail to take into account what Yugioh IS and what it's playerbase enjoys or wants. Too often it feels like the criticisms can boil down to "but it would be so much BETTER if it was like Magic/Pokemon/Duel Masters/Vanguard/Ect instead!" and so on and so forth, which I think always rubs the wrong way. If yugioh fans wanted magic, we'd be playing magic. I think keywords integrated with PSCT would be pretty easy because most players have their own slang for it anyway, which you outlined, and I think if more people framed the suggestions in this way (conducive to how yugioh already IS rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole by making it change what it is fundamentally) I think more people would be receptive to it. Great video.

[@TheNotableNobody]

I'd say Tuner's functionally a keyword, and Spirit/Union look very close to ones. Seemed like they were trying to experiment w/ keywords, and design space a common ability provides, early on w/o utilizing text saving. Archetypes were also a possible answer for Konami's need for keywords. From Dark Worlds/Glad Beasts to Tri-Brigade, archetypes are often held together by shared lines of text. Hell, while this might add more text, if they used Ability Words (text w/o no rules but implies a shared feature) that'd also make it easier to read.

[@eavyeavy2864]

Vanguard got clan keyword yeah

[@peterhacke6317]

Add gemini to that list.

[@IamGrimalkin]

Tuner isn't really a keyword, as tuners don't really... do anything. All they do is let you summon synchros, but synchros all specify tuners in the card text. The only ability that really acts like a keyword is FLIP. The others all specify what they do in the card text itself.

[@YukiFubuki.]

@@IamGrimalkini’d describe tuner as simply a ‘parameter’ like spellcaster, WATER, level 5 etc it exist without meaning by itself but simply creates a category that may dictate it on other cards

[@rmt3589]

I think a lot of effects could be in subtypes, but they actively tried that, then stopped with a few exceptions. Spirit, Union, Gemini, Tuner, Fusion, Link, Syncro, XYZ, Pendulum and Ritual are the ones I speak of. Each of these have their set rules tied to them. With exception of cards with different colors, Tuner is the only one they use without printing the meaning on the card. Very early on, they could have done this and made these part of the rule system, but actively didn't. The other thing is spell/trap types, which they did very well. If they took this idea for other cards like trap monsters, this could have simplified a lot. I think Rush duels are their way of rebooting the cardgame, and hopefully they use some of these tips when they do.

[@gossiperzoroark9629]

I always considered yugioh card text to be a way to trick people into comprehensive reading “You fools, you may think you have escaped school, but now you must do your reading lesson! Tell me the difference between a semicolon and a comma! Mwahahahahaha!”

[@FluxbolEscueladeFutbol]

10:15 "YuGiOh is a game designed to be played by everyone..." 👀

[@Gekkoulong]

PSCT is a closer way to make card easier to understand, but I don't think Konami will use keyword along side it (they would probably just shorten the card text in other way) Still having keyword would make the card easier to read and lesser wall of text on card.

[@kitsunewarlock]

Yu-Gi-Oh! even has some keywords: Flip and Tribute! That said, the one is needs more than any is Nomi: this monster cannot be normal summoned or set.

[@mikezheng33]

I honestly see Konami slowly adding keywords. (Quick Effect) has replaced "during either player's turn" for example. It won't be the same as MTG but it'll be a similar idea.

[@josephcourtright8071]

I like (Quick Effect) better because the cards have a lot of text and the (Quick Effect) tends to be relivent.

[@DragoSmash]

i think "(Quick Effect)" could be shortened further to a symbol, just like the tap symbol in Magic

[@jmurray1110]

Personally I don’t like symbols tge size could lead to them being hard to read Hell I have issues identifying things like continuous, counter, field and quick play with their symbols and those are bigger than the font size 3 text

[@saitougin7210]

The funny thing is, that players use their own keywords anyway. Everyone says "search" instead of "adding a card from the deck to the hand". Every player says "hand trap" instead of "a quick-effect that activates in the hand" or "an at least spell speed 2 effect that activates in the hand". Actually YGO kinda has many keywords already. It's probably just because the cards still have sooo much text on them, that everyones first reaction is: "Needs keywords!" LOL. But it is supposed to be a "game for lawyers" where one little different word somewhere mid-sentence changes everything.

[@YukiFubuki.]

The players use keyword because they can understand it but at the same time the actual effects can differ, like if someone plays a card to summon a monster from the deck (e.g emergency teleport or branded opening for example) they would still call it “searching” all the same as if they were using a card with an actual effect to search out another card to add from the deck to their hand despite being different enough in game mechanics to count as separate things too Unofficial keywords is use to a degree but sometimes it’s less of a keyword and more of a collective of similar yet very different actions instead

[@xolotltolox7626]

Dude, people will refer to anything that searches on summon as a "stratos" even if they have large differences

[@randomprotag9329]

thats the main reason. when explaining what you doing or card being refered to nobody wants to say a full sentence for something that can can be said in one word.

[@CoppermineTypeK]

Honestly this is a much better video/anything on keywords in yugioh is a lot better than a lot I’ve seen I think keywords would be helpful in the long term but would be very difficult to implement without updating the card text of nearly every card (at least in the database). The official reasoning for no keywords aren’t great but I can understand the idea behind them. PSCT was a great way to update things but they also don’t update card text in the database across the board as card text advances

[@MysticdestructionAJ]

The problem comes in the terms of weird text, like sure most cards can't be targeted or whatnot, but there's literally a card in the game that says "This Link Summoned card is unaffected by your opponent's activated effects, unless they target this card". So that's a specific type of hexproof that has a hole in it's protection and requires a specific type of Summon, what sort of keyword would we use for that specific instance?

[@murphystegall5145]

One of my main problems with keywords for more complicated effects or effects that can easily be modified to do different things for different cards. Sure you could still use keywords so the card has less text but it makes it much more difficult to understand. But then it becomes a question of when are effects simple enough that making a keyword for them won't cause issues with reading or making more complicated versions of those effects?

[@jaernihiltheus7817]

Yeah. Yugioh's main draw is in the fine text. As a single word missing in an effect can be the difference between trash and broken (which is entirely intentional the vast majority of the time). Yugioh could probably use more keywords than it does now, but Quick Effect, Add, Draw, Destroy, Banish, Excavate, Flip, Equip, Piercing, Double Piercing, Negate, etc etc etc are all good enough, without forcing any restrictiveness on the effects themselves to make them more uniform.

[@MysticdestructionAJ]

@@jaernihiltheus7817 You're speaking my language, man. This is what I've always thought about keywords in yugioh, and you put it in the best words possible. Kudos to you.

[@IamGrimalkin]

Well, it's not Hexproof. Hexproof, as defined in the video, is "cannot be targeted", this is the opposite. Only Underworld Goddess has that text, so there's no point making a keyword for it.

[@egoalter1276]

Hexproof unless the declared target of a mana ability, for example.

[@MABfan11]

you should've compared Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon to Raidraptor Ultimate Falcon, as they have seemingly the same kind of protection. except Ultimate Falcon is described as *unaffected* with no regards to targeting, letting it have better protection than Hexproof, since Hexproof isn't immune against field nukes

[@BramLastname]

As someone who plays Duel Masters (Japanese Magic the Gathering Spin-off) in Japanese, I can say that Keywords are a major reason I am able to play the game. Also Yugioh does have keywords like Gemini, Toon and Union, But all of these cards have the full reminder text on the card as well, Making the keyword absolutely useless for shortening text. (Granted they've changed the Toon tag so much there's only 1 ability left that's actually shared by all Toon cards, But there used to be a lot of rules they shared.)

[@Always.Smarter]

This video underestimates how difficult implementing keywords into YGO is, and overestimates the benefits from using them. Also, the section about 'why YGO doesn't use keywords' seems to have missed the point Konami was making. Keywords DO NOT make the game easier to understand, they only introduce ambiguity for the benefit of making text more concise. If anything, they make the game harder to understand because it creates an extra layer of abstraction on top of game mechanics. Foolish Burial is a great example because using "bury" as a keyword would take it from an easily understandable card to an ambiguous card that now requires new players to consult another source to decipher. The example at 14:24 was especially funny, because as someone who doesn't play MTG, I actually found the old card text on the left to be far more informative and less confusing. The newer card text on the right had me asking questions, it made no sense at all until I read the old one. So, the point made in the video fell completely flat with that example. The point around 12:30 about cards having very similar but different effects is CRUCIAL to why YGO can not implement keywords. "Indestructible" just doesn't explain enough. Is it indestructible to your opponents card effects only, or to your own card effects only? or is it both? Is it only immune to monster effects? or is it only spell effects? or is it only immune to monsters that have a lower ATK? or is it like Block Dragon? or is it like Underworld Goddess? or does it just negate effects that would destroy it? There are just too many slight effect variations for keywords to make practical sense in YGO.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

you really dont know magic, do you?

[@Always.Smarter]

@@goncaloferreira6429 ?? i literally said that i dont

[@goncaloferreira6429]

@@Always.Smarter well, your point about how reading the extended explanation of a card being more clear that the shortened_/keyworded version of it misses many things. first of, oubliete is a an old card with a long history and that has particular use in only 2 of mtg´s many formats. the reprint of the card as well as , to some degree, the changing of the text, was part of a long conversation between a group of players and wizards. the players that have any interest in oubliete know perfectely well what the card is and does. you have to consider many things when evaluating things. one of my biggest gripes about tcg players is that they have opinion on games without having experienced them.

[@revimfadli4666]

Keywords might not make understanding the game from zero easier, but they do make it easier to 'chunk' the effects, assemble them together, and figure out how the combo would work Maybe you underestimated the benefits of 'chunking'?

[@egoalter1276]

Keywords primarily.simplify, by consolidating mechanics. They make a certain type of interaction always work the same way regardless of context, because no small.detail can be different due to negligent wording.

[@centurosproductions8827]

Properly naming the simpler keywords helps with this. Basically anyone would be able to grok what "Flying" does, and First Strike is almost impossible to get wrong even if you know nothing about what it does (it strikes first. That's it). I like how Konami said they didn't want you to need a manual to decipher the cards, but then "if" and "when" work differently, and you need a manual to figure out the difference and why. (Honestly, I really don't like the idea of missing timing like this, and think Dupe Frog should just take effect before the summon that would cause it to miss finishes summoning) I also don't understand how Last Turn causes a draw there. Why can you play it without a monster of your own, and how does that not allow your opponent to summon a monster and win by default?

[@jaernihiltheus7817]

Cards like Last Turn and Chicken Game are notorious for their confusing card text and effects.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

Basically, Last Turn's requirement is that you target a monster of yours to keep, while your opponent chooses one monster to Special Summon, and if there is only one player with a monster left at the End Phase, that player wins the duel. If that is not the case, it ends in a tie

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

Except before i learned it, I assumed First Strike allowed the creature to ignore summoning sickness and attack immediately. Only thats supposed to be haste, and First Strike is specifically allowing the creature to attack the opposing creature that is batlling it.

[@keltheskeleton]

On the subject of the complexity of yugioh, what are your thoughts on the 'pacing' or 'speed' of the modern era of the game? A lot of new players I find drop the game rather quickly after being overwhelmed by the number of actions (+complexity of individual cards) the first turn player takes to setup their board.

[@Draw5Move5]

@Walter Kelusky I think there can absolutely be complexity overload in this era of the game. The game is incredibly fast, and decision paralysis abounds. I did a video on the speed and if Yugioh's lack of a resource system affected it a while ago, and don't know if I agree with my points there as much as when I made it, now seeing how others look at the game and redefining my terms of "speed" and "pacing" around the turns, rather than the literal time the game takes. That said, I think introducing people to the game either A. through older formats where the game was less complex, or B. through trap heavy decks that have less decision points and shorter "combos" but can still compete with modern decks is entirely possible and potentially easier. Not every game you sit down to play is going to be against someone playing a super long, involved combo deck, even if that's what is popular at the moment. For every Sword Soul player you find, there's still a pretty good chance you'll run into someone on Dogmatika, or Altergeist, or Sky Striker, which take shorter turns and focus more of their actions on the opponents turn. Those decks are more like a war of attrition, and I think they're a better place for new players to start and get comfortable, then move on to the crazier combo decks I'm fond of if they so desire.

[@strangevol5264]

@@Draw5Move5 Swordsoul as a heavy combo deck? Frankly, I think it's one of the best decks for beginners. You just summon Mo Ye, make Grandmaster, search Longyuan, make Baronne/Chengying, and you're golden.

[@peterhacke6317]

@@strangevol5264 Yep, by todays standard, sword soul is a mid range deck, placing it right in the middle of fast combo decks and slow controll decks, which drag the duel out over more, but shorter turn. True combo decks are things like dragon link and all the auroradon abusers.

[@TheAmazingVector]

I think the biggest missed point in the video is the design philosophy of Konami. I agree with cutting down the "geek speak," as not even MTG or Digimon can get away with not printing reminder text on an absolute TON of cards, mostly to get the point across off of one pack/deck opening, that certain cards are designed to simply tell you what it does fundamentally while the quality of said card suffers in the long run. I can sympathize with cutting down on keywords and keeping the text in a sort of conversational tone because keywords themselves can get daunting. Ben Brode spoke about this during development of Hearthstone. They deliberately cut down on keywords for almost his entire tenure and just kept effects short and sweet, keeping keywords unique to certain cards. That way, they didn't need to make a ton of cards with the sole purpose of having reminder text for a new mechanic. This entire video feels like it's has too much gamer brain going on, because while some keywords help, not everyone will get it on the first go and players who put the game down must now catch up with an entire dictionary of one-word mechanics that need to be either researched online, or shown to you on a card.

[@2254narken2254]

The problem with keywords is that it increases the barrier to entry, a card saying hexproof instead of this card cannot be targeted by your opponents effects make for easier reading for those used to the system, it just adds another layer of things you need to memorize to the game which makes the game harder to get into for new players. I don't play magic often but every time I do I always have to lookup what each keyword does even though I know how to play the game. That being said I personally prefer if games do have keywords, but I can see why konami would be against them

[@adud6764]

I hear this so often, but I think this is just plain wrong for many reasons. Most of the 26 evergreen keywords are pretty straight forward if you understand anything about the game, e.g. Flying, First Strike, Defender, Reach, Haste and more. Granted, then there are a bit more tricky ones, like Hexproof, Menace, Vigilance or Scry, but even these basic effects are sometimes explained on the card itself if there is room. See "Jade Guardian" or "Artificer's Assistant" as an example. And all the other keywords and mechanics are always bound to certain expansions, so there is always only a small subset of additional keywords you need to know and especially those are almost always explained on the card itself, see "Heir of the Wilds" as an example or look up example cards of those keywords. And even if keywords were hard to remember. Is it really easier to get into the game when you have to memorize slight alterations in common effect formulations over 11k cards? Or 6 different ways to summon extra deck monsters, which often override their summoning conditions based on their card text?

[@adud6764]

@Bradley Smithwick "if you hear that often then it's probably true" Please tell me you don't seriously think that. "I had a background playing some old school Yu-Gi-Oh" YuGiOh gameplay hardly translates to MTG gameplay. I don't know what you are on about. "just understanding wtf cards did" What keywords though? And assuming you understand the basic rules of how to play (phases, damage calculation, blocking, paying mana), what was so hard to understand? "first 3-5 games and ask how certain cards in cards interact" But thats always going to happen, with any cardgame - any game really, doesn't matter what. The question is if it is a fair tradeoff for people that play more than 10 games. And YuGiOh does use a kind of keyword too, because there are fixed phrases and meanings behind words, that you have to know. Like if "Eldlich the golden lord" says, that it cannot be 'destroyed' by 'card effects'. What counts as destroyed? What counts as a card effect? Those are still concepts you have to know, just like keywords. "Number 92: Heart-earth Dragon" can supposedly be resummoned if it was destroyed while having xyz material. Doesn't always work in Master Duel - no clue why. Bugged? Some obscure rule? Caused by one of 15 different side effects by the way it was summoned? Who knows? I certainly would have summoned it when I played it in paper. "I learn Yu-Gi-Oh from playing Yu-Gi-Oh video games" Yes, a rpg-like MtG game could have been fun, I don't know why they never did it. Maybe they didn't think it was worth it - who knows? Now there is MTGA which has one of the best made clients I have ever seen for any cardgame. They also offer some decent decks for free. So that's certainly worth checking out. I don't know about the tutorial section. They included some stuff, but I skipped it, because I played since beta.

[@revimfadli4666]

And Magic addressed that long ago using reminder texts

[@IamGrimalkin]

​@@adud6764 The reason you couldn't resummon heart-earth dragon was probably because you summoned it off draglubion or something rather than xyz summoning it. All extra deck monsters have to be summoned 'properly' before you can resummon them from the GY. This is true in the TCG too, so don't try and summon it when playing paper; unless it has been xyz summoned.

[@egoalter1276]

I strongly disagree. If you have good keywords, explanations are not necesseary.

[@kangaroochief7511]

Another thing that MTG does is use reminder text on simpler cards (that are more likely to be played by newer players) that explains what the keyword does. Most players have probably learned what most keywords do from cards with reminder text rather than googling them. Also I think its funny that Yu-Gi-Oh are concerned that cards with keywords would be confusing for new players. Current Yu-Gi-Oh cards look like scientific documents and it takes a really long time to read each card and then work out what it does which I think would be much more off putting than "search" or whatever. Of all of the TCGs I don't play, Yu-Gi-Oh is the only one where I genuinely don't understand what most of the cards do. I can understand all of the words on the card just fine but putting it together into the concept of what the card actually does is really difficult.

[@wilagaton9627]

Yeah. Usually people (sometimes even marketing) would suggest 'this is the best time to pick up the game.' Like what they did with core sets back in the day.

[@Draw5Move5]

@KangarooChief Being a Yu-Gi-Oh player at times is like being an impressionist painter - sometimes you just stare at the reality of a card's text for a while, get a feel for what it is, and ignore the exact details 😂. But yeah, that's why I made this video - despite the concept that "If we just write it in English, in a paragraph, people should be able to understand it," many people just don't because most people don't write, let alone *speak*, in grammatically correct, complete, scientific sentences. Look at "Small World" from Burst of Destiny and tell me, honestly, if you can understand what that card does. I don't even know if keywords like search would make the rest of it easier to parse, but at least it would let you focus on the complex part, y'know?

[@kangaroochief7511]

@@Draw5Move5 Small World seems like a good example. What the card does isn't that complicated really once you understand it but I had to read it like 4 or 5 times to actually get to that point. Yu-Gi-Oh seems to assume that its players are either deliberately trying to find ambiguity in the cards that they can exploit (rules lawyering) or won't understand the card unless everything is explained in excruciating detail. I think that the MTG approach is better where they make the cards are clear as possible while still being readable and then have the edge cases explained either by the rules of the game itself or by specific rulings on cards which can be found on the cards' web pages. I think that Konami would argue that having to have players go and look up what a card does is unintuitive and bad for new players but these edge cases occur so infrequently that you very rarely actually have to look up rulings (unless you are in a tournament or something).

[@goncaloferreira6429]

first paragraph is wrong. reminder text shows up in lower rarity cards that will most commonly be played in limited environments.

[@traplover6357]

There's only some real keywords in YGO to save text space. 1)"Remove from play" = Banish 2) "Graveyard" = GY 3) "During either player's turn" = (Quick Effect) 4) [Look at Airknight Parshath's original debut text , not its newest erratas] = inflict piercing damage.

[@jdvred9210]

Also Excavate

[@ImSumGuy]

I think the biggest keyword that the game needs is regarding once per turn effects. I think leaving the old once per turn effects that are colloquially known as soft once per turn is fine, but a keyword for hard once per turns would save a lot of space on a lot of cards, but idk what keyword would make sense for it, and how to adapt it for twice or thrice per turn, or distinguishing between each effect once or only one effect only once per turn.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

Soft once per turn becomes "1/Turn" "Only use 1/Turn" for "You can only use" "Only activate 1/Turn" for "You can only activate" Then just replace 1 with any number you want.

[@victhefoxygamer]

A similar argument could be made in which the "Mill" keyword existed before it actually existed. Sphinxes Tutelage, Consuming Abberition, or even Millstone were wordy in the fact they read as "Target player takes (number) cards from the top of their library and puts them into their graveyard" or in the i stance of Abberition which reads roughly "When Consuming Abberition deals combat damage to a player, that player puts the top car of their library into their graveyard untill three land cards are put into the graveyard this way" Now, nobody wants to say all of that so the players simply dubbed the mechanic "Mill' after the aforementioned Millstone, and would simply say "Sphinxes Tutelage triggers, mill a card" or "Abberition triggers, mill for three lands, or whatever Of course, yes it is a keyword now but look at how old Millstone is and then look at what year the first "Mill" Keyword was actually used. So, yes. Yu-Gi-Oh easily can and should incorporate keywords. At least the "search" and "recover" ones for sure, even piercing is reasonable. Thats just me though

[@cluelesswanderer]

Great video as always! I think there’s some truth to what Konami says about keywords being kind of technical in a way that might be offputting to new players, but also I think konami is being a bit hypocritical being critical of keywords as a concept when Yugioh cards are basically infamous for being complicated and inconsistent when it comes to card effects. I mean, just in general, yugioh is a game that favors deep technical understanding of mechanics and card text over being easy to learn for a beginner, so they basically failed if that was their goal in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I love Yugioh, but it’s a complicated mess of a card game haha. Also, I think Konami underestimated how powerful keywords can be because the best thing about a keyword, I think, is not that it shortens an effect, but just that it gives an effect a name. For instance, I remember what Trample does in mtg despite only hearing about the effect once and never playing the game myself, because the name is memorable and the way it relates to the effect makes sense as well. It’s especially helpful with card effects that are a bit wordy to explain but are simple in concept, because then all the player has to remember is the simple effect tied to the name and not the specific wording of the effect necessarily. All that said, I’ve found that it is a lot easier to design cards using keywords as a tool rather than just writing unique effects for each card. Like, I can just look at my list of keywords and think about what combinations don’t exist yet as a card or what keywords would be appropriate for a new card thematically.

[@Draw5Move5]

@CluelessWanderer, that's exactly what I like about keywords - evocative, simple to understand and remember text that can be used _as_ a design element. I think they're much easier to grasp - and to work with as a game designer - than the admittedly dense text on many Yugioh cards. There's a reason we say Yugioh players can't read: Konami gives us a paragraph and we mostly skim it or ignore it entirely. Yugioh is a mess, but it's _our_ mess 😂.

[@briannitzschke2767]

I have a bit of a counterargument for the sake of discussion. Would adding a pool of keywords inhibit creativity? Basically, the ideas I think of are keywords to specific effects, rather than uniquely created effects. For example, El Shaddoll Winda is not "indestructable" she cant be destroyed by opponent's card effects. She can be destroyed in battle, and by her controller's card effects. But would such a specific protection effect exist if the card's creator just decided to put "indestructable"? Would they have even thought of modifying the keyword? Its a little philosophical, but keywords might encourage card designers to just throw on a keyword instead of really using granularity and creativity to create a truly unique effect for the card. Keywords are sort of creative 'ruts' in a way. Tldr: all card protection would just be labelled as "indestructable" and we'd lose a lot of unique protection effects that make a ton of different removal forms viable.

[@cephalosjr.1835]

Actually, a lot of effects in Yugioh do have names. Cards are added to the hand, Summoned or activated (or Set) onto the field, sent to the GY, banished, and returned to the Deck or Extra Deck.

[@Prateek_Dalal]

@@briannitzschke2767 MtG sometimes gives specific effects to their evergreen keywords as well. Like "Hexproof from Black & Blue" So, in case of Winda, Konami can write "Indestructible by opponent's card effects" instead of "Cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effects" If a card said "indestructible" it should be assumed that it cannot be destroyed by card effects or battle. But if they wanted to be specific, they'd add something after that. It's not difficult or complicated imo.

[@briannitzschke2767]

@@Prateek_Dalal you're right, but my contention is that it would make them less likely to think of it. Basically, we know that a person's thought patterns are constrained by the languages they speak, and in the same way, it is constrained by the frameworks they think in as well. Yugioh has less of a framework, because of the lack of standardization, theres no draw to always stick to that framework. MTG has a tighter framework, and that, I hypothesize, may mean that the developers creativity might be a bit more constrained.

[@egoalter1276]

last turn is very clearly worded to explain a simple mechanic difficult to engineer within the rules of the game. You and your opponent have a duel between just two creatures, whichever wins wins the game. Yours has to be already played, your opponents has to be a special summon cost 1 in his deck.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

It's not just whichever wins. The one who loses is the one who has no monsters left. Yes, there can be a tie if both players still have a monster in the scenario where the battling monster that lost summoned something like a Token

[@peterhacke6317]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Whichever wins was the base idea. But since other effects intefere, they had to do exception handling. What if monster refused to be destroyed by battles? And of course, what if the opponents monster never shows up? Maybe they should have last turn negate all other card effects until resolution, so they could just duke it out without interference, but they didn't.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@peterhacke6317 Yeah. And then they banned the card because tied games are a timewaster (same reason Self-Destruct-Button got banned)

[@peterhacke6317]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Not sure if they banned last turn, because it produced to many ties or because it is a ruling nightmare with all it's exceptions. Or mayby even, because it was to easy of an alternate wincon. Because most other alternative wincons take either more cards or turns to be fulfilled. Probably some mix of all of the above.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@peterhacke6317 The altermate wincon wasn't that easy to execute consistently, considering the LP stipulation, and how it isn't that easy to bring out a Special Summon lockdown monster in advance. It's probably due to rulings and tied games wasting so much time (again, similarly to Self-Destruct Button)

[@sea9205]

Awesome video! I was having a discussion with a buddy of mine about this very topic, and one thing that came up in our conversations then was not only the use of keywords to shorten text and simplify rules, but the idea of reworking card borders to open up more space as well. MTG, to take the oft-cited example, has both physically larger cards and a larger space on the card proportionally for it's rules text. In times past this was different, but the borders of the game have evolved over time, while maintaining their core identity. You show an example of an alternative frame for a yuigioh card that appears to accomplish the goal of having a larger rules text space, but do you think that Konami might ever change the borders of the mainline card releases?

[@Draw5Move5]

@Sea I think the Rush border is, unfortunately, probably going to stay a side thing. Maybe there's another way to design it for the main TCG - for example, I _love_ that the level is written with a number instead of 8 tiny stars I have to count like two or three times, and that entire row of the border is opened up as a result - but for now I think Konami is too afraid of messing things up or alienating fans to try it (see: outflux of fans when they found out they couldn't summon more than one Fusion/Syncho/XYZ/Pendulum without making a Link monster first when Master Rule 4 and Links initially came out).

[@adamg2031]

For Suprex and Dupe Frog you could also keyword "sent from the field to the graveyard", as Magic does with the term "die". So Dupe Frog would just be "When this card dies you may search or recover one frog monster." If you really want to get creative you could find a way to keyword cards that are treated as though they have the names of other cards. If, for example, you could add a card's "true name" to its type line, you could take out a lot of extra text.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

Id rather we keyword "send/sent to the GY" by itself, the specifics left on the card. "Bury X from your hand", "Bury X from your Extra Deck", "Bury X from the field", and so on. The true name thing is impossible because of space issues.

[@xolotltolox7626]

I don't really like the idea of keywords in yugioh Makes a lot of the cards feel more unique in how they work than just being standardized samey effects Like for example Infernity Archfiend, Aleister the Invoker, Elemental HERO Stratos and Satellarknight Deneb all have effects to search when summoned, but all have scenarios where they can trigger and can not trigger. If key words were a thing, they would likely all just be the same keyword which would make it more boring

[@xolotltolox7626]

@@Ale-xv1un then all you get is needless proliferation and confuse players even more. Magic has this exact same issue where many keywords are similar but slightly different, because they are from different sets and don't want to re-use faction/plane unique keywords. Magic at least gets around this via rotation, but it is still not very great

[@michaelk__]

A lot of yugioh card text nowadays is on restrictions, which also is one of the easiest part to trip up on. Sadly their complexity and nuance will often make it impossible to keyword them well. Some things you could probably technically keyword like being locked into a specific attribute... and then you go into detail about for which summon types that restriction applies, then whether that restriction must have been met the whole turn or only after the effect applies... or maybe whether or not the restriction still applies when the effect gets negated. It's a mess to not have keywords, but I guess at least they can experiment with stuff that can't realistically be keyworded?

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

I feel people get too obsessed with trying to fit as much they can into a single word. "Cannot be destroyed by battle or card effect" shouldn't be made to just "Indestructible", because it wouldn't protect against destroying the card as cost, or using something like Evenly. If you just remove "Cannot be" and left it as "Indestructible by battle or card effects", you remove the possibility of misunderstanding it or similar effects. Instead of making a ton of keywords for adding a card to hand from any location, just have Add to your hand become "Retrieve" or something. So we get "Retrieve X from your deck/GY/etc etc" For summon locks, just say "You cannot Special Summon non-X monsters from your Extra Deck", with X being the type of monster you're allowed to summon. Like the Chaos Synchro lock becomes "You cannot Special Summon non-*LIGHT/DARK Synchro* Monsters from your Extra Deck" HOPT uses/activations become "Only use/activate 1/Turn"

[@Fressbremse]

@@ZeothTheHedgehog And what if a card can add from the grave or deck? And what if it can add from the grave, deck and banish? Do you want a different keyword for all of them? What if a card is able to special summon from your hand? Name that manifest or whatever. And then a card that can special from hand or deck. And then a card that can special from hand, deck or graveyard. And then a card that can special summon from deck or extra deck. And then a card that can special from the hand, graveyard or enemy graveyard. Yu Gi Ohs effects are super, super nuanced. You will not improve it by adding keywords to seemingly simple things. Some text could be abreviated with simple key words, but actually they would only be shorter by a few letters in exchange for being less clear by not using keywords.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

@@Fressbremse have you... read my comment? I said the game shouldn't have a billion words for entire stuff like "Adding X from Deck or GY to your hand" or variants of that, I specifically said that "Add to your hand" is getting replaced by "Retrieve", since that's a word synonymous with "go get something from somewhere" "Retrieve X from your Deck", "Retrieve X from your GY or Banishment", "Retrieve X from your face-up Extra Deck", so on and so forth. "Special Summon X from Y" isn't something that needs to be shortened, because there's no way to shorten it without becoming illegible. And you're right, Keywords by themselves won't reduce the text by that much, but that's why we should implement line breaks between effects, and numbering said effects. Even small things Keywords that don't remove that much text will make those changes that much better.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

@@Fressbremse you're literally complaining about the same problem I'm talking about.

[@ianthefifth7790]

Also if I remember correctly, piercing was a word created by the players way before Konami officially adopted it. I played at shops around 2009 onward and that's when I first heard it.

[@DaemonRayge]

Actually, Konami did use it one time on a card back in the day. it dates all the way back to Cyberdark Impact during the GX era and was on one of the Cyberdark cards.

[@ShapelessMonstrosity]

I think one thing missing from the section about why Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't use keywords is that Yu-Gi-Oh is driven by Konami in Japan. It is the Japanese game designers who decide how cards work, while Konami Europe and America have to localize the cards to communicate those same effects to players. The PSCT article that mentioned not wanting to use keywords was written by someone from the English localization team. The real reason that the TCG localization team don't want to implement MtG-style keywords is because the Japanese side doesn't use them. All of the arguments for implementing keywords could just as easily be pitched at the Japanese designers-but it is the Japanese designers who would need to implement keywords, as otherwise it would likely cause a large number of inconsistencies between the English text and how the cards work in Japanese. The big problem with implementing keywords without the support of the Japanese side is the very literal meanings of the existing game terms. For example, "Tribute" sends a card to the Graveyard, but a card is still considered Tributed if is banished instead by a card like "Macro Cosmos". Conversely, if a card has a cost that requires a card to be "sent to the Graveyard", that cost cannot be paid if the card would be banished instead. Likewise, if a card says "Send a card from your hand to the Graveyard, then do something else", you can only do the second part of the effect if the card actually went to the Graveyard (if it is banished instead, you don't get to perform the "something else"); conversely, if a card says "Discard a card, then do something else", you do get to do the second part of the effect even if the discarded card is banished, because it is still considered "discarded". This could be a big deal for a term like the proposed "Bury" (sending from the Deck to the Graveyard)-if "Bury" appeared in a cost, it would lose the fact that the card must actually go to the Graveyard in order to pay the cost. Similarly, if an effect says "Bury 1 card, then do something else", you would implicitly be able to do the second part of the effect even if the sent card is banished. Theoretically you could still use "Bury" in limited circumstances where these kinds of issues don't occur, or rule that "Bury" is a keyword rather than an action word ("Tribute", "discard", etc.) and so works differently, but neither option is ideal. This would not be an issue if implemented on the Japanese side at the same time (as they get to decide how cards work), but without them on-board it would only cause further problems like the ones I mentioned. I think it would be much less of a concern for proposed keywords for Continuous Effects though, such as "indestructible" or the abbreviated "piercing".

[@lunistg]

someone may have said this already but, MTG did the turning a fan term into a keyword when they made "MILL" a keyword for putting a card from top of library into graveyard. the fan term was derived from the card "millstone"

[@yuseifido5706]

Shortening graveyard to GY is something they should do with other common words/phrases. Like "once per turn" to OPT

[@brago900]

Until you realize that the game is localized in a lot of different languages.

[@cephery8482]

Ok so how do you differentiate between ‘once per turn’ ‘only one of these effects per turn’ and ‘only use the effect of this card name once per turn’

[@yuseifido5706]

@@cephery8482 Thats not what im saying. Im saying to shorten the words "once per turn" to OPT

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

​@@cephery8482"Only use OPT" or "Only Activate OPT" depending on which. I feel even the current text we have still needs to be explained on how it differs from a soft once per turn.

[@cephery8482]

@@ZeothTheHedgehog ok but that’s not how it’d be written. It’d say “you can only use the effect of “card name” OPT” which is barely shorter.

[@Rael199327]

More so than keywords, I feel like we need a change in formatting. Having the cards list their effects with bulletpoints like in the OCG could go a long way to help read the cards easier, instead of having to skim through all the “fluff” text. Once you’ve read enough ygo cards you realize that the main things to look for in a card are: summoning restrictions, timing of the effect, if it’s hard once per turn (you can only use this card’s name once per turn) and weather it locks you into anything. Konami has already streamlined the timing of the effect part when they changed “during either players turn” into “quick effect”, if they did the same for hopt writing it would go a long way.

[@pedrohenriquemonteirodacos3224]

I think that yugioh used to haves it fair share of keywords. Polymerization used to be "Fuses 2 or more Fusion-Material Monsters to form a new Fusion Monster." That are a keyword but they removed it, now it is "Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck, using monsters from your hand or field as Fusion Material." Also they haves the keyword Excavate that is a shortening for "Reveals the top x cards of the deck" and Piercing for "if the monster attacks a Defense Position monster whose DEF is lower than the equipped monster's ATK, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent"

[@CM-jc8ql]

Master rule 6 could do this and other things instead of introducing a new summoning mechanism.

[@Crowniecrown]

When my friend and I started playing YGO, we actually had to look up what 'Excavate' meant on Pot of Duality because we 1. Thought YGO didnt use keywords and 2. They could have just used 'Draw' like they usually do, which completely went against their reasoning for using keywords in the first place. It's so crazy that they stubbornly refuse to use keywords when one of the biggest barriers most people have with YGO is the wall of texts. They dont even label the abilities like the OCG does.

[@NoName-yu7gj]

It's because the effect of drawing and excavating are different. Drawing is adding cards to your hand, while excavating them adds them to a temporary buffer. Some cards activate when you draw a card or there are effects that prevent you from drawing. Excavating is a way to get around that. Yugioh does have some standardized words where you do need to be familiar with the rule book to know what they mean. Once you understand what excavate means, it means the same thing on every other card the mentions excavate. The only difference will be to condition to activate that effect, how many cards get excavated and what you do with those cards.

[@Crowniecrown]

@@NoName-yu7gj I get that. The issue we had was that "excavate" doesn't even do what the actual word would imply, making it a true game term keyword (a confusing one) that only applies to YGO, which they say they want to avoid. When excavating, you dont typically dig something up, shift it around, then put it back.

[@IamGrimalkin]

​@@Crowniecrown Excavating isn't always putting it back. It is on Duality, but isn't on e.g. Reasoning. But yeah its a keyword.

[@NinjaLobsterStudios]

As another example of Yugioh's ridiculous card texts, I am still to this day baffled that they write so much text on the Toon monsters. The fact that they all don't behave the same makes things even worse! If Konami was never interested in keywords, they could have put some restrictions on the Toon monsters (e.g. this card cannot attack the turn it is summoned) and then on Toon World put all the extra effects (e.g. Toon monsters you control cannot be targeted by battle unless the attacking monster is a Toon monsters). This archetype doesn't function without Toon World so it just doesn't make sense to put all the text on all of the cards. Extract the common effects to another card where possible

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

You see, that is because Toons had a massive gap between the old support and the newer support where they decided to overhaul a lot of the Toon mechanic, namely making them less reliant on Toon World to stay on field, as well as making them more than just big bunguses that can attack directly

[@Nukestarmaster]

On the if/when dichotomy, ditch the entire concept of "missing timing". It's stupid, and is nowhere implied by the text on the cards.

[@culinaryfox4983]

I don't think they're trying to say keywords are too complicated, I think they're trying to say keywords don't fall into their marketing strategy. Games like MTG are arguably targeting their own fanbase. When they say "geekspeak" and "technical", they mean they are avoiding lingo that isn't understood outside of the fan base/established players. They want anyone to pick up the game and not need to ask "What does this term mean?" or "Can you explain what this does. I'm just a little confused." They want players of a wide age range to be able to read the card and it have all the information they need, including brand-new players.

[@randomprotag9329]

konami traded having to learn common keywords and maybe a few uncommon ones for having an essay of a card text that is more confusing and hard to read. never seen before magic cards are simple to read identify the keyword and quickly ask what it means if needed. while never seen yugioh cards is reading a puragraph (dont miss that one semi colon which a new player would need help to know to look for) and needing to find the non bulet pointed or highlighted information. magic cards are simply easier to read mid match, only have a barrier that applies to very new players commonly and it only happens a couple times. reading and understanding 25 never seen magic cards is easier to new players than 25 neverseen yugioh cards.

[@jmurray1110]

I think more concise interpretation is We don’t want a new player to think they need a glossary to follow a basic chain

[@kailin9257]

You're videos are very good, very underrated channel

[@Draw5Move5]

@Kai Lin Thank you! If you enjoyed this video, make sure to share it with friends who might like it too! The channel is still so small that just those simple word of mouth interactions make a big difference for helping it grow!

[@kailin9257]

@@Draw5Move5 Thank you for replying, I have a couple friends who might be interested in your channel and what your videos are about.

[@Throrma]

I mean I would like to see more keywords in yugioh. Also just please turn all when efects to if. It makes no sense in this powercrept state of the game. It just makes confusion for new players and makes older decks even worse. It wouldn't make any impact on the game only saves time and turns off frustration caused by missreading when or if.

[@VinceOfAllTrades]

I applaud you for not mentioning "once per turn" at all in this, as it's BY FAR the most common phrase printed on Yugioh cards. The OCG has a method of formatting cards to convey the frequency of ability usage that the TCG didn't adopt. Konami could drastically reduce card text if they would just define "You can only use this ability of once per turn." using a keyword, abbreviation, or symbol. Given how many abilities are once per turn, I'd argue that it might be better to change the rules to state that an ability is once per turn by default and can be used more if specified.

[@YukiFubuki.]

while the whole piercing phase can be shorten due to how common it is there is actually a reason why they still write it out fully, what happens if you were to attack a monster that either has an effect or is under an effect that prevents the player from taking dmg (e.g a fairy type monster while sanctuary in the sky is active on field), would the piercing imply it goes through such an effect or not or what if in the same scenario the monster being atked is also in atk position, the answer may seem simple as in to just clarify how this effect applies in every situation as a ruling but unless its tournament most people would probably just try to interpret the interaction between such effects in an obvious manner in this case having effects written out on the card fully gives a more clear and concise basis for interpretation and eliminates a lot of the uncertainty on the spot

[@windhelmguard5295]

one easy thing to avoid confusion about key words is to include the explanation of those keywords on cards that only have one. for example if all a monster does is piercing damage you can explain what piercing means and then any player who has seen that card knows what it does when they find one that just says "piercing"

[@pedropaulofaria6126]

The whole missing timing thing is a discussion worth having in the first place. Why is it even in the game? Its so bizarre and easy to reolve just publish an article saying ((No card misses timing anymore)) it would even be a buff to certain old cards.

[@wilagaton9627]

I think its because they didn't want cards to have unintended card effects. Like when the Legend rule in Magic states that you can't have 2 Legendaries of the same name on both sides of the field. This gave Legendaries and creatures with cloning effects additional effect that wasn't part of their card text, which was becoming a removal spell. In the case of YuGiOh, If and When have two very different meaning. So even if they had the same condition, and same effect, a simple change of syntax might give one monster an unintended effect. So sometimes, its easier to just have it miss the timing and let it fizzle.

[@pedropaulofaria6126]

@@wilagaton9627 I know that they have different effects. Thats the problem. The legend rule in magic is something based on flavor and it changed multiple times to become something more modern and simple. Now it works fine and the flavor still present. In yugioh this distinction is based on nothing, there are no reasons for those 2 groups of cards to work differently. Its very confusing to new players and it only reward rule-lawyers.

[@Draw5Move5]

A discussion on Yu-Gi-Oh's wording and PSCT in particular, differences between "when" and "if," etc. is something I've thought about doing. As for why that distinction still exists... the only reasons I can think of at this point are tradition and, as @Wil Agaton mentioned, to avoid the cards functioning in unintended ways. To his point, we already have a lot of cards with very obscure rulings in Yu-Gi-Oh that just result from unclear wording or sort of unclear rules text, since we lack a super in depth rules document that's easily accessible to players (larger problem with the judge system, not gonna go into it here). But more specifically to cards functioning differently: changing "when" to function like "if," for say, the Gusto archetype, would literally catapult the deck leagues ahead in power because it becomes a potent link/synchro engine. That entire deck has effects that were specifically designed _not_ to work when they were used as synchro material, despite being a synchro archetype. Why, I couldn't tell you, but the deck is no longer the same deck if the cards say "if" instead of "when." Cards like Ash Blossom and Borreload Savage Dragon, if they used "If" instead of "when," now can negate any card earlier in the chain, since they don't need to immediately respond to the effect in question - "chain blocking" as a concept is now useless. While I agree that the whole "when" vs "if" thing is super confusing and kind of unnecessary, the fact that it exists in the game gives Konami a sliding scale for how powerful they want certain effects to be just by adjusting that wording, for better or worse, and a lot of the game's interaction is built around that distinction. ... Y'know, maybe I should have a video on this subject, that was a lot of info lol

[@t3rcx]

​@@Draw5Move5 Sorry for responding to an 8 month old comment, but if you are still going to make a video on this subject eventually, reminder that it is a game mechanic that negating the activation of an effect must occur in direct response to the effect, regardless of "if" vs. "when" text (see Doomcaliber Knight interactions). Also, good video and good editing, subscribed :) .

[@Sleepy0173]

Took Konami about 10 years to print a version of Waboku that didn't imply your creature's toughness stat was alright, and it took "Hallowed Life Barrier" another decade to be written in a way that hinted at it covering battle destruction rather than just damage protection. Also their latest Legendary Collection only updated text of legacy cards that had already gotten updated by other products across the years. Random stuff like the Orca Megafortress of Darkness from IOC doesn't even have PSCT and is written just like it was back in 2004, but in 2023. ..... I don't have a lot of expectations for Konami making quality of life improvements based on these things, but I'd love to get keywords. They instead do stuff like "excavate" which replaces "reveal" but only for deck-interacting effects and just makes text longer.

[@chrismiller3548]

Keywords will also make the yugioh cards less intimidating for new players due to less text

[@revimfadli4666]

The keywords need to be intuitive though, or you'd just be trading away one confusion for another(though this time it's one that clears itself over time)

[@RealPeasantLord]

The only honestly, as someone that plays the game pretty often, the only keyword I would want added would be ‘indestructible’ for cards that can’t be destroyed by battle or card effects. Keywords do have a downside to legibility on cards, since the keyword has to be self referential to be immediately understood by new players if you don’t want them to have to open Google every new keyword that shows up. Having the effect spelled out directly on the card does make the effect text bloated, but I prefer that to having to go on Google when I’m reading a magic card that has a keyword I’ve never seen. One benefit of keywords in magic though is that I was looking through cards on TCG player and found one that says “when you commit a crime” instantly bought it, really funny stuff

[@geossi]

Yugioh could totally get the keywords you suggested, especially since excavate and quick effect are already keyworded in the exact same way

[@TheLiverpoolOwen]

One of the biggest things that keeps me away from magic is keywords, there is way to many keywords, I hate siting down seeing a bunch of keywords that I have no understanding of and have to either search them up mid game slowing the game down or just trust that my opponent both knows what they do/how they interact with everything and that they are telling me the truth. with little to no reminder text how would I know if certain keywords clash or negate other? I don't I have to look it up. But with yugioh (not my main card game, Im just a casual fan who enjoys anime style cards and decks) when I pick up a card I can see exact what the card does and how it interacts (for the most part) without needing to know 20 years worth of keywords. If yugioh started adding keywords now it would just make it more confusing as now new players would need to know all the keywords/geekspeak in addition to the yugioh rules. I understand why videos like this exist and I understand why the though of keywords would help, but at this point cards would need like several keywords mixed amongst their already long card text and with so many slight variations in wording it would be a mess.

[@YukiFubuki.]

not to mention actual overlaps in effects too, like some excavate effect (coughchaosrulercought) send cards to the graveyard which would trigger mill types of effects but some cards explicitly requires them to be milled by an excavate effect which wouldent work if milled worked as a keyword so something like this just simply cannot be keyworded

[@TheLiverpoolOwen]

@@YukiFubuki. exactly, yugioh has not got simple effects that do one thing like flying or scry, every effect is slightly different so almost everything would need its own keyword. dont get me wrong things like once per turn could be cut down the same way cardfight vanguard does it, in vanguard we have a little box at the beginning of the effect saying [1 turn], as for hard once per turns vanguard has it like yugioh where they say "This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn." (vanguard is not too tight for space and effects are laid out nicely). but you could just put a something like [hard 1] or [single use]. apart from that I don't think you really can cut yugioh text down without making it harder to understand.

[@YukiFubuki.]

@@TheLiverpoolOwen actually hart opt and soft opt is sorta not really applicable to keywords too, many people don’t seem to realize it but opt isn’t as concrete as some people make it out to be but simply players describing how abusable a card is For example if you look at cards such as baronne whose restriction on its negate effect is a hard opt through its name it also states the card itself can only use it once while face up which adds another layer that makes to even more restrictive compared to something like DPE who just has the standard hard opt through its name, if both a baronne and DPE were to use their effects on the same turn the opposing player can change control of DPE with something like triple tactic talent or change of heart and still be able to use its effect again on the same turn becuase the hard opt applies to the player not the card but cannot with baronne because of its 2nd restriction achieving a harder opt then a standard hard opt but players will regard both as a hard opt without difference The same goes for even soft opt too like say in a mirror match with mirrorjade (pun not intended) it’s soft opt effect will work the same as a hard opt in the above scenario because the restriction applies to the card itself not the player yet with its additional once per 2 turn activation it’s essentially a harder soft opt then the standard soft opt but players won’t regard it with any distinction as any other soft opt until it’s relevant since the standard soft opt abuse can still be applied to it Yugioh’s effect is very much married to the syntax of its grammar and punctuation so keywords here is no different then perverting the matrimony, it will just result in a messy divorce

[@Hensley_Jb]

Yugioh has no rotation (which I love). Do you think this would make it even more complicated as time goes by. I also feel like while alot of card effects are similar many of the slightly differ to add character to the cards

[@2424Lars]

I'd argue that basic things like 'draw' or 'discard' or 'destroy' are also keywords since they hide rules text as well. And the introduction of the term 'piercing damage' is an actual keyword

[@luminous3558]

We are way too late for keywords and yugioh is a rulings nightmare through and through where you will find 2 cards that interact 1 way and 2 other similarly worded cards that do the opposite and you just have to be familiar with the interaction to know how it works.

[@RealPeasantLord]

It’s funny you bring up piercing battle damage, because the text before they decided to use that keyword was way longer

[@GrimDrago]

Another way to shorten the text is to abbreviate some of the stuff like how Graveyard > GY Main Phase - MP and MP1/MP2 Battle Phase - BP And it's not like that unusual for them to do because a lot of the older yugioh game have done that

[@phorchybug3286]

Even key words, as simple and small as they seem, can also come off as way too complicated. For every DEATH TOUCH and INDESTRUCTIBLE, you have a VIGILANCE and SCRY. I had to look those up to understand them!

[@MapleFried]

For those who aren't initiated in MtG: Deathtouch: No matter how much toughness the defending creature has, your unit kills them. Indestructible: Unit cannot be destroyed in battle (some cards have anti-condition effects as well). Vigilance: Attack without needing to tap the unit once the attack/defend phase is done. Scry: If the qualifying condition has been met, you may look at (x) numbers of cards on the top of your deck and place all but one on the bottom of your deck; (x) is indicated by the card's effect. Token: a creature which cannot be used in anything other than attacking and defending (barring specific conditions set by any token effects or keywords; I.e. Defender)

[@violetto3219]

@@MapleFried i don't want to sound weird and pedantic but scry is looking at the top (n) cards of your deck and rearranging them in whatever order you choose, at the top or bottom of your deck. you could Scry 3, and put 1 card on top and 2 cards on bottom, or all 3 on top in a certain order, or whatever

[@MapleFried]

@@violetto3219 By all means; I appreciate the correction lol

[@phorchybug3286]

@@MapleFried I told you I looked them up and wrote them down.

[@MapleFried]

@@phorchybug3286 Hence why I started with "for those who may not be in the know". Yes, I replied to you, but others who might be having issues with keywords might also interact with your comment. You clearly don't apply to this category, so... yeah. Not sure what to tell you, really.

[@datosaur]

A couple Keywords that thought of: -Allied: Cards you control. Example: Tribute 1 Allied Archtype Monster; Add 1 Archtype Card from your deck to your hand -Opposing: Cards your Opponent Controls. Example: Destroy 1 Opposing Monster -Held: Card in your hand. Example: Discard 1 Held Archetype Monster; then Draw 2 cards

[@Fressbremse]

Yu Gi Oh is using keywords, wherever they can, but due to how nuanced every single effect can be, the cases in which that can be done are very limited. Sometimes keywords even lead to even longer cardtext. Like (Quick Effect) now instead of "During either players turn" seems shorter, except when you actually AREN'T supposed to activate it during either players turn. Then you get "During your opponent's turn (Quick Effect)", which is actually longer. See Flamberge for example. It is not actually easy to point at multiple cards having the exact same effect without at least as many other monsters having a very similar but not exactly same effect, each having a tiny different spin on it. You wouldn't actually gain much from keywording something like this, because the text you save on some of the cards actually ends up on another card, which needs explained that it actually doesn't work exactly as the keyword says, all for the cost of having a keyword that doesn't explain itself and people need to know. The problem with YGO cards isn't actually the text or keywords. They're mostly very clear if you're familiar with their syntax like ; : , "if" "when" "and if you do" "then". The bigger issue is the formatting of the cardtext. If each effect would simply be split up into it's own section, it would be so much less cluttered and easy to understand. Example: Add 1 "Diabellstar" monster from your Deck or GY to your hand. During your Main Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 of your "Sinful Spoils" Spells/Traps that is banished or in your GY, except "WANTED: Seeker of Sinful Spoils"; place it on the bottom of the Deck, then draw 1 card. You can only use each effect of "WANTED: Seeker of Sinful Spoils" once per turn. This sucks to read. Add 1 "Diabellstar" monster from your Deck or GY to your hand. During your Main Phase: You can banish this card from your GY, then target 1 of your "Sinful Spoils" Spells/Traps that is banished or in your GY, except "WANTED: Seeker of Sinful Spoils"; place it on the bottom of the Deck, then draw 1 card. You can only use each effect of "WANTED: Seeker of Sinful Spoils" once per turn. Easy to read. Immediately clear. If only cards wouldn't be so tiny. Thank god Master Duel exists.

[@alphu5]

I always thought Yugioh's 1000 essays cards are what deters me from playing it for too long as I have to keep up with each and every competitive viable card's text to be able to even play with anyone ( and not wasting their time in me reading each effects). I also have problems with memory issues and made me quit the game entirely. Having simpler or rather easy to guide to keywords would gave helped in my opinions since it helps me to find guides for it. But that's my take on it.

[@BathtubGoat]

Just got roped into YuGiOh from MTG, this video is a way better stated version of what i was trying to tell em. I was ready to learn a whole lot of terms, rather than read fine print for 5 hours. Luckily i had good friends and I knew it would be worth it but YEESh it took ages to play them correctly cause impatience.

[@Zetact_]

Turning static abilities into the descriptor portion would cause a complete shift in the game. Effects like piercing and battle immunity are effects, not traits of a card. Hence, they interact with cards that interact with effects. Saying "Monster/Effect/Piercing" would mean that if your opponent activates something like Skill Drain that the piercing would not be removed, the same as how a Tuner with its effect negated is still a Tuner. Doing that with multiple static effects would be chaos.

[@YukiFubuki.]

another thing is that the traits of the card themselves does not actually have anything to it, like an effect, normal, union, spirit, toon, tuner etc these words do not have any actual meaning or any sort of ability baked into them in the first place, they're simply meaningless parameters used as a means for other cards to interact with even in the case of union, spirit and toon, these is more of an exception considering they're experimental mechanics more then anything concrete and over the years konami have shown that the standard text for these sub-types are not static and can be subjected to some degree of change too

[@ren_suzugamori1427]

I think a mix of Key Words and PSCT would be great. I'm working on a TCG for fun, and I've noticed that since my goal is to have less words as possible, Key Words has helped, but effects for things like removal and stat boosting that don't really spread to other cards, PSCT that's tighter on the word count feels like the best for those kinds of effects. I do come from Yugioh being my most prominent TCG, so I can learn from them & improve on what PSCT can be.

[@ryanager8029]

And now, months after the release of this video, Cross Duel got released and uses Keywords

[@ATable4You]

The fact that Rush Duels exists shows that Konami *could* use keyed text since RD cards are literally formatted as: [Requirement] "what you need to do to play the card" and [Effect] "what happens after the requirement is met." This shows Konami sees the TCG as nothing more than a little cash crop to stuff their wallets with.

[@shantheman9922]

The lack of keywords is a big reason why ive never tried yu gi oh. I dont want to have to read an essay every time someone plays a card. In Magic, someone could play a card i've never seen before, and i could fully understand what it does within a matter of seconds thanks to keywords.

[@ulisesmunguia8715]

While I agree with the general idea that Yu-Gi-Oh should use keywords, The example of dupefrog and goukis actually shows the complexity of it even more than you showcased. Dupe Frog can also return a frog from field to hand, so even "search" and "recover" would not be enough to cover everything the effect does, and I don't know if returning a monster/card from field to hand would be prevalent enough to be keyworded. Perhaps you could use "compulse", but then you would still need to specify that you can only compulse a frog you control (and not from the opponent's side of the field).

[@skycap3081]

I almost just want yugioh to do a reboot. Use larger cards and start fresh. Take fan favorites and release greatest hits sets and slow the power creep down. go back to set a monster pass days. I don't know just every card releases now with a phonebook of text on them and has gotten way to complex a step back could lot for the game.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@skycap3081 It woudl cause massive outrage, and potentially lawsuits because of how expensive some cards end up being

[@skycap3081]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 What do you mean? look at rush duals and speed duels and duel links trading card games shut down all time and games like magic has different formats. If Konami shut down production of Yu-gi-oh and no new cards came out like on January 24th 2024 no new sets no new ban lists nothing. Then two years later came out with Yu-gi-oh Duel Monsters the text boxes were larger and the cards themselves were magic card-sized they would get lawsuits?!? Card games do not last forever look at the graveyard of dead card games. They do not get sued. How many dragon ball tcgs have there been>?

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@skycap3081 Okay, think of it this way. Yu-Gi-Oh has over 10000 cards people can play, some of which expensive as hell. Cna you imagine the reaction when they realize those cards are not usable anymore? Don't you think it would cause outrages?

[@skycap3081]

@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Not useable how so? its not Konami comes to your house and burns all your cards you still have then you own them you can use them and set up play groups they can't stop you from using the cards. Official support for the Yu-gi-oh trading card game would stop. no new sets or tournaments or ban lists. The old game would still have a following of course. and that's great I support that. I mean people still play GOAT format. I just want the game to be simpler in my reboot. we just do not print any links or pendulums They do not exist and with a larger playing card size and keywords, the art and text can be bigger. I want this to rebrand everything all the popular decks can be made anew and redone and rebalanced,. Yugioh cards today simply have too much text and do too much. Long gone are days of set a monster and pass. If you end support for the game the right way I dont think people would be upset. Make a huge farewell set for Yu-gi-oh throw everything into that set and reboot 2 or 3 years down the line.

[@ArcDragoon]

I don't see Konami ever printing non-evergreen Keywords like MTG. The reason being is that Yu-Gi-Oh! is the only game I've seen that requires specific wording to balance cards. Even if the audience recognizes that a card is a ROTA, Yu-Gi-Oh! with its long history has made it so different flavors cards sometimes need different flavored wording to balance their card effects. And unfortunately Keywords would actually make more generic cards, and that would be bad in a game like Yu-Gi-Oh!, where one of its few balances is based around archetypes. In addition, if Yu-Gi-Oh! wanted to have Keywords, then they would have to accept simplifying the game. For example, just giving up the missed timing between "if" and "when". But of course, that goes back to my first point about Yu-Gi-Oh! being balanced around its long texts.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

8:59 now suddenly we need a word for adding from GY, Banishment, or Face-up Extra Deck to hand. I never liked this idea of trying to reduce Adding from deck specifically to keyword, as it forces you to add a bunch of other keywords you'd then need to remember when you can just have for them all. Id rather "Add to hand" is changed to "Retrieve" and leave the specifics alone. "Retrieve X from your Deck", "Retrieve X your Deck or GY", and so on. 9:05 Bury should sending a card in general, not just from Deck. "Bury this card from your hand", "Bury all other cards from the field", and so on. Making it specifically replacing sending from deck is far too limiting. I feel like people want to fit too much into one keyword. There's middle ground between the needlessly long text we have, and the needlessly short text I see suggested.

[@TheHaddonfieldRegistry]

I... I kinda like their explanation. I never realized it, but I actually do enjoy the layman's explanations on their cards.

[@wickederebus]

we have Piercing, and a dozen ways to say "unaffected by effects"

[@dm4life579]

YGO needs a draft format that limits cards to the last 3 or 4 sets with their own ban lists. It'll guarantee the longevity of the game, the competitive scene and the casual scenes will both improve. It'll also open up room for reprints and older archtypes to come back with slightly different mechanics and support leading to a dynamic and interesting competitive and casual environments.

[@ManuYoCom]

I never understood why Toon is a Sub-type but they don't all share some Toon effect like "Attack directly if opp doesn't control a Toon". The first batch of Toons could have a significant smaller box if they did.

[@YukiFubuki.]

its a left over from early yugioh, same with unions working like equips and how all spirits return to hand too

[@remixtheidiot5771]

i think the biggest thing holding konami back from finally adding a keyword system is simply that the game is too far gone at this point. they made their stance back in edison format and have stuck to it for too long. if keywords were to be added, pretty much the entire library of as you said around 10,000 cards would need to be rewritten AND reprinted with the new psct. perhaps komoney simply sees no financial incentive to do this when the cards are still printing money regardless. considering rush duel tho, perhaps someone at the company really does just has a vendetta at the concept of keywords. since rush is essentially its own product, it would have been the perfect opportunity to finally introduce keywords into the game... but they didn't. the card text is formatted better for sure, but still has a lack of keywords. i can only imagine the reason why konami thinks this way.

[@Gowly_]

Have you considered making a discord server? I think it might be a good way of keeping the community of the channel engaged, especially in the time between video releases. Amazing video as always.

[@midshipman8654]

i personally never liked round about “thematic” card terms like “flying”. I think it provides way too specific of a contextual idea of what it means in the fantasy rather than structly refering to its practical effect in game. however, more broad, effect facing terms like “pierce” I dont mind since they describe WHAT game mechanic is going on, rather then providing a specific fantastical interpretation. Its the same sort of principle I prefer in rpg’s. sruff lime “hit point” and “attack” are mechanic facing enough to apply broadly regardless of setting, in space or a fantasy kingdom, but a word like “bash” is too specific and context facing for it to be broadly fitting. and one other thing. I think keywards farget an odd denomination of players. a newb probably wouldnt know them all and a pro probably knows them off hand anyways. while yugioh’s method may be slower, being deliberate, even if not experienced, will allow you to understand a card flat out. so i kinda agree with their “geek speak” point.

[@ChaosGalaxyTCG]

Yugioh is the only tcg I’ve ever competitively played - this video is eye opening and just seems ridiculous that Konami aren’t using keywords! Thanks for introducing me to this concept!

[@cephery8482]

I disagree that keywords make a game beginner friendly. Now yugioh isnt, but all it’s likely to do is make someone read a card if they see it has less text on it, but when they read it and understand nothing it’s still not gonna entice them. Talking about effects like search is super easy and that’s maybe the only thing you said i think should be implemented, but these cards just do so many things. It’s the having 3 effects per card that makes it impenetrable not how long it takes to say them. It’s easy to take something like parshath and Knock a couple words off that one effect, but how do you intend to shorten even just the rest of suprex, or take something like borrelload savage dragon where negation can’t be keyworded cause of how differently targeted negation, negate and destroys, aoe negates ect. work differently and equipping a link from grave and gaining counters baser on it’s link rating is an effect not seen anywhere else. Yugioh is a complicated game cause cards do so much so differently. The real best way to simplify them isnt in the effects but the conditions and formatting. Have each independent effect on a new line, with an icon to show if it’s continuous, quick effect, trigger, trigger that misses timing ect like the icons for different types of spells, and write it something like condition | cost | effect so that it’s very obvious what part is what. So for example gouki suprex would be normal summon: special summon one gouki monster from your hand. sent from the field to the GY, you can only use this effect of gouki suprex once per turn: add one gouki monster from deck to hand except gouki suprex Or air knight parshath would be: this card inflicts peircing battle damage this card inflicts battle damage to the opponent: draw 1 card. It actually keeps the wide variety of different effects just the same but make it much clearer how you use those effects and makes it easier to scan cards to pick out specific effects.

[@alicepbg2042]

0:38 - gonna assume you mention it later. but yes it does. piercing for instance is a key word in yu-gi-oh! 6:56 - there we go

[@alicepbg2042]

to add to the discussion... players already use keywords all the time. konami should just start adding them. it's better for everyone. specially when there is so much text on these cards.

[@rokmare]

I guess yugioh wants every effect to be unique to the cards that's is why boss monsters are so iconic like DPE, V.F.D, Access codetalker, etc

[@Lcngopher]

Magic took the fan used keyword of mill and made it an official keyword in core set 2021. This comes from the card millstone which does that effect. Mill is when you take the top x cards from your deck (or make youre opponent do it) and put them into the graveyard where x is the number indicated by the spell or ability causing the effect

[@anthonycannet1305]

Keywords make it easier to understand cards at a glance. Sure you might have to learn what “trample” or “hexproof” means, but once you do you instantly know what a card means when you see the word trample or hexproof. Without the shortened keyword text I have to learn what a card does by sitting and reading it. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to knowing what yugioh cards do from memory. I have to read the text box, and often times that takes a huge chunk of time from the duel where neither player gets to do anything just so I can understand if or how I might be able to respond. If the text were shortened it would save time reading a new card. When I play magic and new cards are played, I only have to read the card for a few seconds and everything I see has implied rules. Take Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice from Mtg for example. The text box reads exactly: Flying Vigilance, Deathtouch, Lifelink. At the beginning of your end step, Proliferate.” That’s 4 words and 1 sentence that also has a keyword. It took 2 seconds to understand what this card does but the expanded text is: “This creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach. This creature doesn’t tap when attacking. Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it. Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life. At the beginning of your end step, choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter for each kind already there.” That looks like a yugioh card text box… but it really only does 5 things. Reading a keyword immediately tells me the expanded text after reading just 1 word, or if I’m looking for the effect I can skim through the text box until I see the keyword. If a magic card can’t be targeted it would say “hexproof” somewhere on the card. If a yugioh card would have the same property, I have to find the whole sentence because just the word “can’t” or “target” could be used for a number of other situations…

[@Alice_Fumo]

I was thinking how yugioh cards could be made more readable. What I thought was that it should have its effects in the form of functions with parameters. As a very simple example, the card text of pot of greed would become "Draw(2)" I think it makes a lot of sense considering that yugioh cards already have a lot of logic operators in them, so might aswell format it like a programming language which have good readability for such things.

[@Alice_Fumo]

As another example for the Dupe Frog which was part of this video, in my syntax it would be something like: "When Sent(Field, Graveyard) ....Search(Name.Contains("Frog") Or ....Recover(Name.Contains("Frog))" the dots are meant to symbolize whitespace. There'd also have to be something regarding the card changing name while on the field, but I'm not sure how I'd do that elegantly. Some cards might end up with more lines of text this way, but it would be much neater text which is so much easier to comprehend - assuming you know all the function parameters - like the first parameter of Sent being the Origin and the second being destination with an optional third parameter to specify the target should it not be the same card, but I think it's very obvious what they are in the vast majority of cases.

[@randomprotag9329]

the loose idea worked for magic. the rule book could have lectures about it structured like a maths lecture.

[@tonglai7499]

Cuz YGO everything is archetype… the concept of keyword is to duplicate the same effects across cards. YGO do not design card that works individually, they design the entire archetype, and each card is just a small part of an archetype. And since each archetype has different ways of running, no duplicate effects are used across different archetypes. They can technically have keyword among one archetype, but that isn’t going to be better. For example, all shadoll cards can refer when X, do something. Where X is just when a card is sent to graveyard. But this isn’t gonna help that much

[@sagethevvitch]

It's hilarious and sad that this video is 2 years old and I still see people talk down to anyone that suggests Yu-Gi-Oh use Keywords. At a certain point Konami should just do it and stop listening to the people that will play no matter what

[@TheVictor126]

the real answer? both keywords and long paragraphs are barriers to new players in card games, just in different ways, I don't play mtg and reading comments mtg players keep mentioning keywords like they are intuitive when they aren't, before the video I had no idea what is flying, reading the comments I still see a lot of weird stuff I have no idea, wtf is "menace"? starting yu-gi-oh on master duel this year also gave me similar vibes, long paragraphs are tiring to read, but if I didn't understand something I can just read the cards, except for innate mechanics such as synchos which I had to learn with google, but even failed mechanics such as spirits or union monsters always explain what they do in the text, a new player that watched the anime and just starts reading cards can understand a bit of what's going on, speaking of which, the anime is a massive advantage to yu gi oh on this department, even the 1st season gives you a basic understanding

[@s.goebel9750]

Yugioh kinda has Keywords already with Quick effect, Flip and the different types of Spell and Trapcards like continuous, field or counter

[@tingetcg2063]

Hi there! I'm developing a very unique card game that might be a topic of interest to you! Pls let me know if interested for more infomation!

[@GlacierMoonDragon]

Search is nice keyword tho. But how do you explain "add 1 "(Archetype)" card from your Deck or GY to your hand".

[@josephpurdy8390]

A card's function that uses a keyword may also, be represented with an icon. Alphanumeric text could be partially layed over the icon. This could be useful when the function being performed incorporates a mathematical forumla. It can be used to quickly recognize inputs and outputs necessary for the card mechanic.

[@copperfield42]

Before keywords I want better readability on the text box, for instance in the ocg they use numbers in a circle to differentiate between effect, why tcg doesn't do that? in the tcg I have to read all the card just to find the second effect, like come on... MTG nailed it with by having a line break between effect, like for example I don't need to read all of _Questing Beast_ text box to get onto its second or whatever effect, meanwhile I'm practically forced to read all the novel that is pen Endymion just to get to second effect🙄 that is soo annoying...

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

Yugioh can have *some* keywords, "hard once per turn" could be a fucking symbol on the level of MtG's tap symbol given how prevalent and important it is. But it can't have nearly the same level of keywording as any other game. The lack of a resource system has forced the game to use the units' effects as the entire balance/design space. They need the higher level of granularity. Its the same reason impulse draw/rummage/looting hasn't been keyworded in MtG except its for almost every effect in the game.

[@lolmonkyboi]

Yaaay hes back

[@dudono1744]

Some keywords that could be useful in YGO : • Rank-up • HOPT • Quick Synchro/Xyz/Link These would replace pretty long sentences. Stuff like "Untargetable" doesn't bring much to the table.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

I prefer Xyz Change over Rank-Up. Not every Xyz that can use a single material is "Ranking-Up", for example Utopia Ray is a Rank 4 the same as regular Utopia. And personally stuff like the game doesn't need to reduce the word count to its bare minimum, but just reduce it all the same. Just have "Indestructible by battle or card effect", it might be longer than just "Indestructible", but it accounts for the possibility of Destruction being used as cost or forced through cards like Evenly. HOPT is not good in my book, the current text for it still needs to be explained all the same anyways but this method doesn't account for the possibility of monsters only being to "activate" rather than use their effects once per turn, or cards that can only be used once rather than activated once. "1+/Turn" for Soft per turns, while adding a "Only use" or "Only activate" at the start for when they're meant to be hard is far more ideal.

[@dudono1744]

@@ZeothTheHedgehog Well yes, they can be keyworded differently.

[@ZeothTheHedgehog]

@@dudono1744 which part are you refering to? If it's Rank-up vs Xyz Change, I don't think they should as that's needlessly adding terms for the same thing. There's no difference between Ranking-Up and Xyz Changing, unlike say an effect/card that can only be activated/used a number of times per turn.

[@duelme1234]

3 months late but hey, better late than never. Tried looking on youtub for more game design videos that focused on competitive games and found your channel yesterday. I am a relatively new yugioh player and this topic is something that I have thought about myself before seeing this video. Before typing this comment, I actually agreed that certain common static effects can be replaced by keywords I personally agree that certain static effects can be replaced by keywords (piercing, can't be destroyed by battle, can't be destroyed by battle, can't be targeted, unaffected by card effects). The problem that I found upon deeper investigation is the amount of permutations that are already in the game and how much inconsistency it would add to card text. Take "Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous" as an example. Its continuous/static effect only works against monsters special summoned form the Extra Deck, so do you make a new keyword to incorporate this condition? That's just gonna get out of hand quickly if you do considering the multitude of permutations Konami already has/could do later. You can replace the 1st part of the effect with the keyword (like how search and recover are incorporated into dupe frog's text in the video), but that introduces inconsistencies that I will dive into later. Let's look at "Infinitrack Fortress Megaclops" next. Ignoring "except those of Xyz Monsters" for a bit, just the 1st part of its 1st ability is already different from the "towers" effect of "The Arrival Cyberse @Ignister." Do we make another keyword that differentiates between the 2, or do we add "except by the effect of spells and traps"? Both aren't great options as the former can get out of hand quickly, and the latter is actually longer than its original text. Now, ecclesia and inconsistencies. By this I don't mean different cards with the same effects will be worded differently, but instead how keywords will conflict with the spirit of PSCT. I feel like to better understand why keywords don't work with PSCT, we have change perspectives and view card text not as the originator of cards texts, but as a product of how the devs wanted a card to function and card text just being a describer of the dev's desires. For example, instead of viewing card text as "this creature has trample > thus it deals excess power as combat damage," we take the perspective of devs and say "we want to design this new effect for an archetype, how will we word it to best describe how we want this new effect to function?" 1 very important benefit of PSCT after we change perspective is how easily Konami can tell us exactly what a card does (and how the effects differ from another similarly worded, but not exactly the same, card text) through concise wording (as long as you know how to read PSCT and understand basic rulings). As an example, "Sky Striker Maneuver - Afterburners!" NEEDS to destroy the monster to destroy a spell (3+ spells in GY), but "Book of Life" DOES NOT need to SS the 1st target to banish the 2nd due to the differences between the "then" and "also" conjunction. Also cards like original text "necrovalley" have really ambitious wording and one could technically argue that "sangan" doesn't trigger when destroyed since that effect involves the GY. PSCT for the most part solves the issues of ambiguity. Because yugioh cards are now written in a way that tells you EXACTLY what the card does, the players can understand what a new card does by just reading the card, apply relevant rulings I know (if necessary), and I will know exactly what the card does (Yes exceptions like "small world" exist). Keywords inherently limits the amount of permutations available through simplification, and makes it so parts of the card text can be understood by just reading it (again PSCT and ruling as pre-req) but the other parts only understandable if I memorized/searched for keywords, adding (instead of decreasing) the complexity of yugioh. And now non - static effects, where the amount of permutation yugioh has truly becomes a problems. In a game where a single word (or the lack there of) can completely change how a card functions (target and "Tri-Brigade Shuraig the Ominous Omen"), adding keywords just seem odd. And with the example of "recover" in the video, should you add an equivalent 1 except for the banish pile? What about shuffle from GY to deck? Or banish to deck for Virtual World? I understand that some of actions here occur far more frequently than others, but no matter how you draw the line, the cut off would still be arbitrary. I also do not entertain the idea of potentially learning a new keyword for every new archetype konami releases (I know that's not how you used keywords in your video but it technically could have been a possibility if konami chose to incorporated them back in 2012). sorry for the long wall of text and unfocused writing, originally had most of my points under non static effects but then had an idea and had to reorganize everything around it.