The Old School Card that almost RUINED YUGIOH!

[@CardmarketYGO]

Learn more about the History of the Yugioh Tournament Packs here: bit.ly/3Y8X6vQ

[@chimuoma390]

Folder Back Is THE Most Broken Card In The TCG Multiverse(MMBN,YGO,Pokemon TCG,Digimon TCG)!It Restores Your Entire Deck,Instantly Brings Up The Custom Screen(Ending The Turn),AND RESHUFFLES YOUR DECK,Meaning You Can Keep Spamming It Until You Get The Hand You Want!

[@jamesloder8652]

That isn't how you use the phrase "of which"

[@ItsAWaffelz]

This would make a great series, going through the history of meta progression

[@ljtheone]

I'dike to introduce you to: The complete History of the Yu-Gi-Oh meta part 1 (2002 - 2005). It's a 2 hour high quality video definitely worth the watch

[@waves5249]

TheLawYGO is currently working on it. He releases one vid a month and is currently on 2018

[@iowa89357]

So you are looking for a sort of, how do the kids say,..... a "progression series"? A "History of Yugioh"? *echoes in the distance* Ci-mooooooooooooooo

[@RealLockheedMartin]

HOWEVER

[@Benderofdemise]

There already is something like this on YT

[@WillM69]

I think the worst contender for almost killing the game was definitely Crush Card. Tournament prize only, then short printed in one set and immediately banned afterwards. Actual evil business practices

[@legoferrari14]

Not to mention the erratas that made the old crush cards useless even in casual play.

[@robertfoxworthy5503]

Or cyber stein

[@TheGreatSalsaMan]

Konami learned fairly early on how to control the yugioh money market. Sell them high then ban/limit them so people have to buy new cards. Rinse and repeat. Barely 6 months after Mechanicalchaser was released they gave us Gemini Elf, Goblin Attack Force, Luster Dragon, and Zombyre. Their only real mistake earlier on was making cards like Wall of Illusions, La Jinn, and 7 Colored Fish common and Pot of Greed a rare 😅

[@DoNotPassGO]

​@@TheGreatSalsaMan Hell, WOTC/Hasbro just took control of the ban list for CEDH in Magic recently and the very first thing they did was slap bans onto recent cards like Jeweled Lotus and Nadu, Winged Wisdom on top of a couple older cards like Dockside Extortionist and Mana Crypt. The new Foundations set that drops next is going to have a bunch of effects in-line with what's being played currently in competitive and casual alike but at much cheaper casting costs.

[@13Kaderade]

@@DoNotPassGO Not quite true, it was the 3rd party ban of those cards that cause such vitriol and backlash that the organization said "We don't want the hate, we're handing control over to WotC." We haven't actually seen what the first thing they do with the banlist is yet, I believe.

[@huyphan7825]

Always funny to look back and realize Power Creep was woven into Yugioh’s very invention

[@eeyuup]

Seriously. Even at this early point, Konami making poor choices is blatant.

[@4everdex]

​@@eeyuupehy poor choices? This ist their Marketing strategy... People buy your cards. You Release new, better cards. People need to buy your new cards to keep Up. Repeat. They never meant to make a perfectly balanced Game i suppose. The only Problem with this ist, that they never added seasons or Something to remove very old cards from the meta.

[@CrysisFear]

Not really the 1850 or 1900 attack really didnt matter as long as 2000 def was the norm. I was totally fine when they introduced cards with 2000 attacks but with drawbacks. For me Yata was their biggest fuk up and any other card that had the potential of destroying hand resources.

[@CatManThree]

And Konami grossly underprinting cards that were busted in the OCG

[@Ebani]

@@4everdex That's what sets the game apart from other tcgs, having all of the cards at your disposal instead of banning whole expansions like Magic/Pokemon, the worst thing you can do to your game

[@mrpinguimninja]

I never realized how the starter decks mirrored each other, that's a very nice little detail

[@CardmarketYGO]

Right?! It’s so cool that there was a reason to buy both, or try to trade with your friends! -Taylor

[@Ebani]

@@CardmarketYGO That's the thing i always hated, to make a good enough deck you had to buy both starter decks bc one had some support cards the other didn't, then again most support cards back then were OP (Dark Hole, Change of Hearts, Monster Reborn... you get the point)

[@leonhardable]

​@@Ebanithing is, at that time, they werent as broken. they only became broken over time, esp pot of greed. back in the day, pot of greed allowed you two additional chances at a monster or a spell, sure, strong, but thats it. nowadays it has 7261518 possible combos that require drawing, and getting two cards of a streamlined deck into your hand is insane.

[@leonhardable]

​@@Ebanithing is, at that time, they werent as broken. they only became broken over time, esp pot of greed. back in the day, pot of greed allowed you two additional chances at a monster or a spell, sure, strong, but thats it. nowadays it has 7261518 possible combos that require drawing, and getting two cards of a streamlined deck into your hand is insane.

[@Ebani]

@@leonhardable Lol no, they were also broken back then which is why every deck used them, sure they're worse now bc of all the added interactions but that just proves they were just as broken back then

[@TheBigExclusive]

I remember when LON (Labyrinth of Nightmare) came out on a Saturday. I was a kid attending a local YuGiOh tournament. Suddenly an older adult player bought around 7 boxes of LON. He opened them all up in front of everyone, pulled ALL the rare cards like Gemini Elf, Mage Power, United We Stand, and put them in his deck for the tournament that was going to happen soon. Everyone was in awe. That's the moment I picked up my deck and calmly left the store. I tried for months to try different strategies and ideas for decks. But when I saw the adult buy so many boxes of LON, I knew I couldn't compete with the raw power of big spenders like that. That's the day when I quit YuGiOh as a kid.

[@zahylon5993]

And it never improved, more than 20 years later, Yugioh is still a powercreep festa. Turns that go on forever about people trying to lock each other from playing Yugioh, if anything, the online modes only highlight how broken the game is

[@Sabasses]

I only played against this card once as a kid, who was very proud of acquiring it. The other guy went first and summoned it right away. I set Wall of Illusion and he attacked it on his next turn, sending it back to his hand. He summoned it again and I brought out Summoned Skull the next turn and blew it up. Don't remember how the duel ended but will never forget the crestfallen look on his face.

[@Xelger]

It's a good thing the game is balanced now, where a single normal summon puts six 3000+ monsters on your field that omni-negate all six cards your opponent has on their first turn. Thank goodness for that.

[@CErra310]

no handtrap having ass scrub

[@omeka8842]

yea turning the game into a extremly expensive solitare it totally worth it

[@RC_ALB]

Without set rotation powercreep would rear its ugly head sooner or later. However Konami fueled this fire quite a bit. They created new toxic trends to resolve old toxic trends. For example: Big special summons lead to easy removal. Easy removal lead to unbreakable boards. Unbreakable boards lead to board of negates. Board of negates lead to flootgates. Every new toxic trend we have came as an attempt to combat the old toxic trend

[@alanf5615]

Its the stupidest thing. Quadruple the work for the exact same level of advantage. It's basically yugioh with a full govt beurocracy in the middle. It's mind numbingly stupid

[@malcontender6319]

@@alanf5615 The fans of that broken, modern version are also vicious, spiteful defenders of it. Rich.

[@gearhead6042]

Funnily enough the only time I EVER saw Mechanical Chaser back in the day was when my opponent ran it into my Wall of Illusion and lost two turns later. Don't get me wrong, it was a strong card at the time but it wasn't a guarantee to get you at the top of the bracket like some people make it out to have been. An extra 50ATK wasn't as explosive as you think when generic spells and traps were absolutely bananas out of the gate.

[@RavenCloak13]

*looks at modern Yugioh* Nothing your saying is different from now.

[@gearhead6042]

@@RavenCloak13 lmao

[@babysinclairfan]

Yeah we got magic ruler right after this came out so axe of despair had you covered. At the very least, we all had black pendant and malevolent nuzzler.

[@trevor4533]

It wasn’t a guarantee sure, but it absolutely increased your odds over those that couldn’t afford it. Hence it being a ~$200 card in 2002 lol.

[@Fencer_Nowa]

But knowing when to push and use it played a massive role. It got over every other beater meaning battle on a normal summon wasn't an option and you would have to spend your removal cards on it instead of something else that they can still easily drop too.

[@TheVictor126]

thankfully konami learned their lessons and stopped giving ultra powerful meta warping cards in tournaments, giving people who have said cards a monopoly on getting more copies... 2003? no, they learned their lesson in like 2016

[@tehshingen]

A lot of early yugioh release decisions can be blamed on upper deck, too

[@coreydopson2030]

My step brother was a yugioh fiend back in the day and tricked a kid into trading his mechanical chaser at a barnes and nobel tournament for a starter deck yugi dark magician. To be fair. He wasnt an adult being malicious. He was a kid who was way too smart and had no morals.

[@salamantics]

I traded half my pokemon cards for a fake. As the victim of a similar trick I can only say that It's a necessary life lesson, people will try to swindle you.

[@malcontender6319]

Knowing that 99% of the Chasers that _weren't_ snagged from fad-followers are now in landfills will help ease his conscience.

[@titanpolus5088]

Ironically if both kept those cards till today I'm pretty sure the kid got a better long-term deal

[@coreydopson2030]

@titanpolus5088 idk i feel like the tournament pack mechanical chaser is more valuable than a starter deck yugi dark magician to a collector. And dark magician has been reprinted about 4 million times by now anyways. It wasnt the cool Arcana red haired one it was just the regular starter deck card

[@SkiKoala]

This is the game I grew up with, not the mess it has become today.

[@RC_ALB]

It was always a mess, just a less complicated one. I recently played Championshiop Edition Over the Nexus which is arguably set in one of the most beloved formats and it really made me understand backrow hate. Whatever I had was either destroyed on summon or on attack, and Burden of the mighty seems as imposing as Mystic Mine today.

[@saito853]

5:25 I totally thought you're gonna plug a cardmarket ad in here lmao

[@sygnuus9857]

same came to the comments looking for this comment

[@RaineBans]

same

[@kitsunewarlock]

Great video. Only thing I think this is missing is how important the DARK attribute was in the first few sets of the game. Sword of Dark Destruction and Yami were the only equipment that saw play until Metal Raiders gave us Sword of Deep Seated. While the equip meta would die off by the third set, the inclusion of enough kids at locals playing Yami made La Jinn much more valuable an asset than Seven Colored Fish. The fact that Chaser could also combo with Jinzo and Limiter Removal was also quite nuts.

[@ursulcx299]

Mechanicalchaser is kinda what i hate the most about tcg in a nutshell, constant new release, sales pushed by powercreep, high prices, and then more pwoercreep killing previous investments.

[@RealGateGuardian]

You think that was bad? Try playing nowadays when they have to change the rules every other year because they overbroke the game. Trap Cards are completely worthless because of Hand Traps. Or look at the sorry state that Magic: the Gathering is in.

[@xolotltolox7626]

They aren't investments, they are game pieces

[@Lenarian]

@@xolotltolox7626 Then stop releasing packs and just sell a box with 3 of each card in a set.

[@slagatta]

I don’t play yugioh, I play magic, but in that case, they are most certainly both.

[@tzera_rhuon]

​@Lenarian There have been games to do this, yet very few people play them.

[@resphantom]

I remember as a kid I traded 20 of my recently opened packs of "Duel master" cards with 60 somewhat new and used random yugioh cards in a rubberband. One of those cards was the Mechanical chaser, but I didn't know the significance of that card. I just remember wiping the playing field, playing cardboard on a cardboard mat on asphalt, to stop the asphalt from scratching my cards. At first the guy offered an equal trade. 20 cards for 20 cards. Honestly, I didn't want to trade those "Duel Master" cards, since I just bought them, but for some reason he really wanted them. Not sure if I had something rare or if it was just the new fun card game at the time.

[@dragon-id5uj]

Duel masters was pretty sick. Neat keywords like dedicated blockers. "Shield" system like pokemon prizes. And every card was also, optionally, your mana sources

[@resphantom]

@dragon-id5uj Sounds interesting, do people still play "Duel masters"?

[@darthickrotachi4862]

​@@resphantom its huge in Japan still renamed to "Kaijudo" almost unheard of in the US though they briefly had a Kaijudo US release burbit never caught on sadly

[@superanimeniac]

@@resphantom Duel masters unfortunately never really caught on in the west, but it has a dedicated community in japan. They tried relaunching it a few years ago as 'kaijudo'(the japanese name), but it died off as well. Rules wise, like dragon said, it was basically Magic the Gathering meets Pokemon.

[@mikeduff2070]

problem with duel masters, was you could get every single card cheaply and they stopped making them. My friend had the complete collection.

[@vo1ce147]

That actually a really well put documentary about that stupid 1850

[@xKarmadillo]

My first tournament, I played a pile of my favorite cards that usually won games on the playground... I lost round 1 to a grown man with Mechanicalchaser and Yata Garasu.

[@kylepeer736]

nobody was playing chaser when yata was running around. hell gemini elf and vorse raider existed at the time

[@xKarmadillo]

@kylepeer736 I'm not saying he was playing a meta defining deck, Gemini elf was also in there. And at that point, Mechanical Chaser had a reprint. The video just reminded me of my first tournament memory.

[@seangunnell9451]

Actually, I used Goblin Attack Force as to get my opponents to waste their traps it rather than the monsters I I wanted to keep on the field. Getting them to use up their Mirror Force or Sakuretsu Armor, so I could attack later and not have to worry about those later in the duel.

[@TheZombieSlayerWave]

A crazy rule that we had at my school was that if you had no cards in your hand, you could draw 2 cards (not once per turn). Basically, if you had a spell / trap card as your only card in hard you could set it and then draw two cards for free. It wasn't until I actually went to a tournament that I learned that that wasn't actually the rules.

[@alejorag]

Lol we actually also had this exact same rule back in school which is crazy if you're from England (as your pfp implies) since I grew up in Colombia. Curious as to where tf we got that idea from.

[@Sinzari]

My school did the same but drawing FIVE. I hated it as a kid and refused to play with anyone who didn't follow the real rules. 😆 In Canada btw

[@RMM342]

Back in middle school in 2002/2003 I would go to a local tournament nearly every Saturday. I only recall one person ever pulling the mechanical chaser.

[@trevor4533]

Yeah it was pretty rare. I only remember seeing one in my friends older brothers binder.

[@davidcardinal3654]

I pulled it from my one and only tourney pack, and I didn’t realize how rare it was at the time.

[@TheShapingSickness]

Oh man, this sent me on a nostalgia trip. Bazoo is possibly my favorite monster ever, and I still have my deck with three copies of it.

[@NeroLordofChaos]

9:22 you ain't kidding about that. Solemn Judgement, an omni-negate trap with the cost of half your LP, _ROUNDED DOWN,_ that was also released in Metal Raiders, was viewed as a BAD CARD and didn't hit the limited list until 2009 and was on the FORBIDDEN LIST from 2013 to 2018. If it was any faster than a normal trap, it would likely still be on the forbidden list, but with how fast the game is now, it's so slow as to be effectively useless.

[@himmelsdemon]

What do you mean? Isn't a counter trap still faster than anything else?

[@jofx4051]

It is fastest trap It just can't respond to thing already existing on field or effect activation other than card being placed

[@ApathyBM]

What they mean is there are so many cards now that are somehow better than Solemn Judgement it's not worth using anymore

[@N12015]

​@@ApathyBM More like the game is so absurdly fast you can't set solemn judgement unless you go from first, and even then is not that reliable due to stuff like super polymerization.

[@malcontender6319]

And that: " but with how fast the game is now, it's so slow as to be effectively useless." Is hilarious as it was the fastest type of card in it's day, able to out-chain almost anything. Goes to show how uncontrollably mutated the game has become.

[@Yokai_Yuri]

I miss when the meta was like this instead of the 25 min OTK turns we have nowadays.

[@Zanji1234]

my friends and i were organizing tournaments in my area (we had a shop that sold the cards but that's it he didn't even know about tournaments). Our official TO (who was 22 at the time) was doing all the stuff for the shop while also playing in the tournament (heck we were like 20 people at first). Anyway: After several tournaments he did manage to get 3 Mechanical chasers and of course was kinda always the winner of our tournament and in our whole area (even when other players from other cities came over). That changed when the shift to Upperdeck came and suddenly all available cards in America were suddenly legal (before: only german ones so we had LON at the time while USA had IOC) and suddenly Chaos Decks flooded our national qualifier which we held in a small restaurant (yeah ... really it was a small restaurant next to an ice hockey arena). There no on of us did qualify of course but when we a week or so later travelled to a different city over an hour awaay my friend actually DID win against a chaos deck and secured his ticket to the German Naionals. It was of course luck since the guy just didn't draw any chaos monsters but also ... he couldn't get over Mechanical Chaser and Gemini Elves since every monster in a chaos deck had max 1800 ATK (Kycoo the Ghost destroyer) xD Long story short: a friend of mine did win his nationals invite (i think in 2004?) with a german only deck with cards from LOB - LON while cards until IOC were legal (we did play soul release in main deck though *lol*) But yugioh had a heavy barrier to competitive play without Mechanical Chaser: you needed 3 La Jinn (from a Starter) a Raigeki (a Super Rare), 3 Trapholes (mostly from the starter), 3 Summoned Skull (from the starter mostly), Torriental Tribute (UR), Mirror Force (UR), 3 Man eater Bugs (mostly from the starter) and heavy Storm (Judgment wasn't played that much at that time) so at least 3 Seto Starters, 3 Yugi Starters (or salvage someone for the cards) and several SR/UR cards which were hard to obtain and were incredibly expensive on ebay back then. (though most winning decklist from that time didn't had Chaser because it was so rare)

[@MFChanical]

It's a little interesting how Jirai Gumo didn't really see play, despite being the only normal summon at the time that could beat over a card like Mystical Elf

[@NikkyElso]

There's alot to be said about the doctrine of the day. With all the hindsight I had now, I could go back in time and perform really well in tournaments just by changing my mindset about Life points and start treating them as a resource to be spent wisely rather than something to horde and protect at all costs, but back then that's not how people played

[@lilpotayto]

I ran Jirai Gumo because I didn't have the money to buy many cards and, despite it occasionally running away with games, I was convinced it was a terrible card and that I just kept getting really lucky because that's what people told me. The level of anxiety with every coin flip was huge and though it was probably very rarely responsible for losing me the game, any time it landed tails my brain concluded if I lost that game it was Jirai Gumo's fault.

[@oldenoughtowatchify]

I never understood sacrificing you own life points until I saw Injection Fairy Lily

[@MFChanical]

@@oldenoughtowatchify That is actually a very good comparison.

[@ryanshedler4861]

Thinking about it now. I had Delinquent Duo, Jirai Gumo and Solemn Judgement in my side deck when DD and SJ should have been staples; especially DD... At the time I thought LP was so important and the risk of losing 4k for SJ felt too much... I ran a Maha Vailo equip deck and dominated Beat Downs.... it was all great until Yata arrived

[@qianbang_]

I remember playing labyrinth wall where it's so obvious that it gets summon with 1 tribute, no one attacked the facedown labyrinth wall unless the game got long enough until the opponent forgot. We were kids that time so still gold fish memory sometimes

[@CaptainMarvel4Ever]

Taylor, fantastic FANTASTIC video. I love history breakdowns, and this was super informative and well formatted so even those who know the history can still enjoy it. Plus it's broken down so that if somebody don't know Yu-Gi-Oh they get informed on game mechanics. It’s crazy how long it ruled over the meta. Also crazy we haven’t gotten a proper Machine King archetype (yo, since this mentions Machine King in its flavor text, could it get the Golden Sarcophagus treatment even though it’s a vanilla?) Fun fact, the "Attaching the Moon" thing and all the other word rules from early Yu-Gi-Oh come from Mon-Colle, a game that had a greater impact on Yu-Gi-Oh than Magic the Gathering did. MonColle (short for Monster Collection) was a TCG that was created early in the TCG boom, borrowing a lot from MTG. It was a game played on a grid and had many elements that involved use or terrain and putting multiple units together. Inspired by MTG, but played like a quicker D&D game. While Kazuki Takahashi was inspired by MTG, he probably got most of his ideas for rules and gameplay within the story from MonColle, hence why Duelist Kingdom was so focused on aspects like terrain, dungeons, or interactions like Summoned Skull using it's lightning on a damp field to start a fire. Eventually Kaz switched over to rule more in line with what Konami had formulated as they began to collaborate more, but in the early days Yu-Gi-Oh was the best MonColle anime/manga around... ok that's not true, the original anime was pretty good, and the manga was epic as hell. Sadly after MonColle tried copying set rotation the game died in Japan. It didn't help that it was a very complex game that may have been harder for people to pick up compared to other TCGs (in fact Yu-Gi-Oh got a substantial boost after MonColle's first, and I guess last, rotation). Pokemon also almost died after its first rotation, but the massive IP kept it alive. Sadly the game has gone through revival after revival, and these days most of the artwork is commissions by hentai artists to appeal to it's adult audience, which is based, but certainly not going to be something you can see to children or internationally. (Sorry for the ultra yap, just wanted to explain the moon thing and this happened. Watching a history vid prolly got me rambling. Shout outs to Lost Worlds TCG for chronicling all this.)

[@dragon-id5uj]

That sounds so familiar

[@CaptainMarvel4Ever]

@ MonColle’s anime did get an adaption in the early 2000’s, but it was one of those heavily localized and edited dubs that kinda made it unrecognizable. Plus they never bothered selling the actual cards the anime was associated with (for some reason). The anime was Mon Colle Knights. There was also an RPG for the PlayStation that was never translated, but got passed around a lot in the emulation craze called “ Monster Collection - Kamen no Madoushi” which you can play for free on the Internet Archive (well, when the Internet Archive fully recovers).

[@RealGateGuardian]

Interested "essay". Some games can survive a rotating format, some can't. Could you image the supernova heat if Yugioh attempted to do a rotating format?

[@EflowNivek]

I think a lot of people forget how early yugioh was played (up until AST). It was about outlasting your opponent's resources. You traded 1-1 and occasionally got a 1-2 generally speaking nothing really lasted a turn without some protection if you played a Jurai Gumo and lost you'd likely be dead in two turns. This is also why Solemn Judgment wasn't played because it was a fantastic endgame card, but a brick in early game. For example Magical Scientist was an auto include despite costing about the same just because of the versatility at any stage of the game.

[@N12015]

That being said, Jirai Gumo is nowadays seeing some play in current critter format, mostly as a 1-of in side decks, being searched by witch as a big beater who can defeat the moon destroyer, opposing La Ginn and a Muka Muka with 1800 or 2100 attack, or just a 2200 attack wall. That being said, is still a monster without floating effect vulnerable to trap hole, man-eater bug, mirror force, and Waboku because it needs to attack to do its job, and the latter 3 allowing the self-burn makes it a worse La Ginn often; it still beats big walls and Muka Mukas, and that's why this bug has a niche while Dark elf does not, but otherwise you just run 3 La Ginn and maybe consider the bug over the fish, since La Ginn's role is mostly beating Witch, set Masked Sorcerer, non-hugr Muka Muka, Attacking Stone Soldiers and Thunder Dragons, something that 1800 attack is often enough. Also, people is running judgement at 3 copies in modern Critter, because denying the board wipes of Raigeki, black hole, Mirror force and heavy storm, as well as the magician of faith that recycles those spells, is just amazing. Is worth losing so many life points due to the potential to go up to +5 in card advantage because unlike the bug, it's guaranteed to work unless the opponent plays another judgment or has seven tools of the bandit set, the latter becoming popular on side decks BECAUSE OF GOD.

[@malcontender6319]

@@N12015 By the time LOD had released Solemn was a staple for me. I also loved winning counter trap chains when the other guy thinks you've used all your Seven Tools. Oddly, besides me and one other dude, everyone at my local shunned Solemn like a Leper.

[@sleepinthemorningcalm]

0:04 I traded my parents crystal meth stash to the local 7/11 worker for booster packs. I thought that’s how most of us got started but ok

[@SoraDonaldGoofy99]

They must have went insane.

[@FolksFox]

Yu Gi Oh has a history of doing things like this. I remember when pot of duality was about $150 a card, and Tour Guide was $200, eventually Konami releases a lesser rare version and by then new cards get released that outshine the old card.

[@RisottoNero-z1w]

Man, I love some cardgame history

[@TechtonixZi]

I remember so much of this era, suffering under each of those 1800+ beatsticks just suuuucked when you were poor and couldn't buy cards OR packs

[@TeH.j0keR]

Yep, but most people weren't even playing right back then. I remember hearing somebody at locals say, "equip cards really suck. you shouldn't ever play them." 💀

[@malcontender6319]

@@TeH.j0keR I bet that guy never had Megamorph used on him offensively, heheh.

[@austinwilburn1772]

I will never forget the time and feeling of using Dark Magician equipped with Book of Secret Arts, with Yami and Witch’s Apprentice on the field to destroy my brother’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon and winning the game. 3500 Dark Magician vs a 2600 Blue-Eyes White Dragon. 900 damage to his 800lps.

[@duane_313]

Your video production is CLEAN as f! Looks so good. And you did a great job explaining the game for anyone that may not be familiar with it. I wasn’t expecting that. Great video!

[@alfonsopayan09]

It’s been a while since the last I saw good yugioh content like this I will say thanks and appreciate every bit of nostalgia you can get from us with theses well done trips to the past

[@faereman]

Great video, I'd love to see more of these kinds of videos about cards that ruined some formats by being both too good and ridiculously hard to get, like Crush Card Virus for example.

[@Eltanin]

Absolutely love the format and editing of this video. Reminds me of similar content from esports channels.

[@shane5837]

It’s wild knowing they did the exact same thing a few years later with crush card virus

[@RockyTSM]

Mechanicalchaser ruined so much of the game for me until the release of Gemini Elf. I spent so much money to get 3 copies until Vorce Raider was released. During this time, Man Eater Bug, Trap Hole, and any Magic (Spell) removal with Magician of Faith became reliable strats.

[@NAMBIRIN]

Back in 2003, I used to play with fake cards from corner store. It was fun until someone told me all of my cards are fake...

[@4everdex]

I love how I had pretty much all of these cards you Mention in the video without even knowing they were so good. I had my dexk stacked with 1800-1900 lvl 4s. Totally dominates in classic Yugioh.

[@zeemilios9327]

Genuinely very good video! I think the way you laid out the story was quite well, and while I am seasoned in Yu-Gi-Oh, especially old-school, I think sprinkling in the basic rules and context needed was a great touch! So many videos nowadays just assume the viewer knows what a MST is, for example xD

[@RMGK79]

I was in my early 20s when this game came out. I lived in a very remote area at the time so I never got to see much of this game aside from the anime itself on TV. I did find a “local tournament”, but it was about an hour drive from where I lived, and even then, there weren’t too many people that played. The nearest city was a six hour drive away. Since I knew I had no chance to play and I admit that I wasn’t a good player to begin with, I began to collect sets instead. I began with LOD and in the following years, completed all sets in first edition, including the previous five before LOD. I knew with so many kids running around playing with these cards, any card, especially a UR and SR card, would be damaged and ruined. I also thought the same of starter decks and tins, and kept them all sealed and stashed. I’ve done until about 2012. As to Mechanicalchaser, while it may have been a pain to contain with, there were so many ways to deal with it then. You stalled and either Dark Holed it, Raigeki it, Swords to stall, or put high defense monsters to stall and get what you needed. It wasn’t full proof, but you at least had a chance. Yugioh Online came out in 2005, where it began to run a little behind the real card era. I competed there more or less and Mechanicalchaser was just as big a problem like as it was in real life, but only for a little while. Anyway, I miss those days. The current gameplay as it is has gotten to be so complex, and I understand the game needs to stay relevant and fresh to keep it going. That’s why I collected when I did because I was hoping that the original prints of these cards would be more valuable. I still have my major collection today, and hope to sell it to one person that would appreciate them as much as I did in the future. I love the game, but the game itself has passed me a long time ago.

[@iketcg]

I love this video so much. I don’t play current yugioh, but I can’t get enough retro yugioh content! Also, this video is so well written! The pacing is fantastic and you create a cohesive narrative while giving us all the necessary context without getting lost in the weeds. Well done!

[@3o7Mian]

Remembered my buddy opened Mechanical chaser in a TP... He got offers right in the shop for full exodia and other crazy stuff at the time. Forgot what he ended up taking for it, but I remember being jealous as heck.

[@Mrx1080]

My ygo rival at school pulled one as well. I ended up buying a copy around 2009/2010 and kept it until maybe a year ago when I sold it for a good markup. I realised when I sold it that the copy my rival had pulled was an eu version so was worth way less which made me smile a bit.

[@DraidaDrai]

I also wanna see more of this from the Cardmarket crew!!! This is really neat to watch and I loved the presentation of it all!!!!

[@bblivid]

I remember when gemini elves came out I was obsessed. Got 3 packs a day and got a gemini elves first edition 9 days in a row until they ran out of first edition

[@keithsnow534]

Lucky she was a secret rare and they were 1/2 per box. Granted some seemed like they werent too secret, like i had 6 thousand dragons

[@bblivid]

@@keithsnow534 Thousand dragon the secret they can go ahead and keep lol. I only had a handful of the really valuable cards at the time. Never got more than 2 mechanicalchaser though

[@keithsnow534]

@bblivid secret rares didnt get good till like set 4 first 6 werent great, gaia the dragon champion was a fusion and they sucked at the time, tri horn dragon was weaker then blue eyes. set 2 was thousand dragon, and gate gaurdian(who had stupid summoning condition). 3 was serpent night dragon, and blue eyes toon dragon(toons were garbage on release), pretty sure it was pharoahs servent the 4th set that finally introduced a meta breaking card with jinzo. Later ones were gemini elf, yata, chaos emperor dragon. First secret rare were trash when meta was summoned skull.

[@Sonicfalcon16]

Things people will do for 1900 atk

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

Oh, man. This takes me back. My first deckbox was one of those 90s metal bubblegum containers. The ones that looked like cigarette packs. And I remember using a water deck especially to counter Mechanicalchasers and things like La Jinn, back in the days where almost no one used field cards. I had Umiirukas from the Magic Ruler set, and those amped my great whites and 7 colored fish to over 2000. I eventually switched to dragons, when the first dragon structure deck came out and Luster Dragon became easier to get.

[@malcontender6319]

Wind Dragons for life.

[@Harry-mf6rq]

I loved that 2002 - 2005 era of Yu-Gi-Oh. Decks were just cobbled together from whatever you could find rather than loaded with one archetype that plays solitaire with itself.

[@traphikonthehourtv]

This video threw me 22 years back in the past. Some of my best memories relived. I thank you for that

[@VioletteZero]

It is always fascinating to find "cowardly lion" metas. Like Solemn Judgement not seeing play for a while because people thought half your lifepoints was too much for an omni-negate. Similarly dark elf is so much better than mechanical chaser.

[@RC_ALB]

I can't believe Jirai Gumo was so slept on. 2400 ATK no tribute summon that you didn't even need to attack with. Could leave it on the field and opponent wouldn't be able to do a thing about it, and attack only if you see that the benefit outweighs the risk.

[@VioletteZero]

@@RC_ALB This also makes Jirai Gumo a prime target to tribute for a Jinzo or Summoned Skull because your opponent would have to dedicate resources to remove it.

[@RC_ALB]

@@VioletteZero Kinda scary if opponent plays Limiter Removal though. Idk, it is strong but it does not feel like facing a Mechanicalchaser would be the hardest thing in the world

[@ninjahedgehog5]

Man. Year 1 YGO sounds like an experience we'll never get in TCG community ever again

[@malcontender6319]

Yes. Year 1 YGO and the WOTC Pokemon run were the two most seminal TCG's ever made. The less spoken of what both have become, the better.

[@pokemaniacdavid]

Ooof that feeling when I had almost all of these cards you’re talking about and I literally don’t even remember when or who I sold them to. Or if I just lost them in the shuffle of moving around in my early 20s. Great video man thanks

[@babysinclairfan]

This video exaggerated A LOT. Almost immediately after Mechanicalchaser came out, we got magic ruler, and with it, 5 good equip cards that saw plenty of play. Mechanicalchaser really only mattered if you slapped an axe of despair on him. Otherwise, you could get over him. His price was due to scarcity and the fact that Yugioh's popularity caused ridiculous single prices at the time. An Exodia set was $300 off some websites and that had nothing to do with viability. Mechanicalchaser was by no means a game breaker.

[@trevor4533]

Yes. But it was the earliest sign of power creep and greed in the tcg. It was a common in the ocg. Furthermore, they printed Gemini elf as a secret rare the following year(also common in the ocg). The best decks back then ran 2-3 elves.

[@AndreaVittorioRossi]

it's a huge overstatement that mechanical chaser almost ruined the game. Also, there were lot of ways to get rid of it. It sure was a powerful card, but the cards that almost ruined the game are called "chaos emperor dragon" "yata garasu" "pot of greed" and so on.

[@realalbertosmith]

and the trend of players feeling priced out by ridiculously expensive power cards that won't see cheap reprints until at least a year later has continued to this very day!

[@mrnaughtycat]

I remember how expensive jinzo was on websites but when joeys tinncame out I got it straight away to get me a jinzo at half the price

[@malcontender6319]

We all wanted a Jinzo, but that joey Started Deck... Penguin Soldier and Scapegoat changed the game overnight. I can remember the meta shift being _radical_ .

[@MalstromFonseca-ze7xe]

one thing i didnt grasp as a kid is the idea of an attack position wall. Jirai gumos effect sounds awful at first but no one said you either have to attack with it or be in defense mode. Just leaving it in attack mode made it superior to a 2000 def monster with only marginally more risk to life points. If guaranteed to be opportune you can always attack with it.

[@RC_ALB]

I think the issue wasn't Mechanical Chaser per se, but the fact that it basically made sure your opponent had a body to tribute for Summoned Skull, but you didn't. Imagine this; you have Jirai Gumo and opponent has Mechanicalchaser. None of you can attack the other. But opponent can tribute it for summoned skull and attack your monster leaving you empty. Then again though, it occurred to me writing this that you could do basically the same with Jirai Gumo. Actually I think you're right. Jirai Gumo should have been considered equal to Mechanicalchaser at that time.

[@MalstromFonseca-ze7xe]

@@RC_ALB mechanicalchaser and later gemini elf certainly gave advantage back in the day, but at least the staple ideal no tribute defense monster was 2000 (and a few oddballs like 1850 illusion wall) could still hold agaisnt those.

[@RC_ALB]

@@MalstromFonseca-ze7xe The video however made it seem as though if you had Mechanical Chaser, you basically won. It doesn't seem nearly as bad as described here. Equip spell, defensive walls and attack walls were there plenty

[@RazlaMau]

Didnt knew back that Days that the Mechanical Chaser is so important for alot of Players x'D... I got the Card from a Tournament Pack and selled it on Spot for 160 My Mother was alot surprised that i go on a Tournament with a Friend and come Home with more Money then i needed to enter the Tournament i just played on :D Was a really good day back then ♥

[@CrisalidoOfficial]

Can't wait for a Cyber-stein/blue-eyes ultimate dragon video 😂 New sub, I really liked the video, it was a nostalgia shot

[@nickjoseph77]

I started with metal raiders but I've never even seen Skull red bird. Lol I thought La Jinn was in the first set. Wild!!

[@GhostTvMex]

I was 10 years old when I bought my first pack of yugioh, I sold the cards I didn't want to my friends and kept the best ones, my father lost his job and thanks to yugioh I was able to put food on the table, I will always be grateful to yugioh , I bought from Blue Eyes to IOC and then I could no longer compete with the big stores, the game was already very popular and you could see many people on the streets with their Deck boxes, it was my childhood and it was very exciting to go to tournaments, meet friends and have parties with pizza, music and duels.

[@thatoneguy7597]

Damn this video unlocked so many core memories - really appreciate the overview!!

[@iggyeo6458]

i wasn't prepared for a really cool history lesson on the state of the game before i joined it. i had the original starters, but never played them, then i started playing competitively during monarch meta.

[@Sinzari]

9:27 As someone who played metal raiders format with a friend, I can tell you that the lifepoint costs were VERY real. It was closer to hearthstone than later yugioh, where if you were under half life, you would probably be losing the game, because you could get raigeki'd and there weren't enough good traps to stop attacks on your opponent's turns. At first we played 3 Jirai Gumo and Dark Elf because of our experience with later yugioh, but we quickly realized they did to a single fissure or trap hole anyway just like the 1800's, and it was very hard to defend your life points so you'd rather just play the 1800s.

[@Crowniecrown]

Goblin Attack Force was use only a little bit??? Bro, beatdown was the only deck that worked at this time and it revolved around GAF, Giant Orc, and Spear Dragon.

[@malcontender6319]

Spear Dragon was my go-to 4 star, used to drop it when they were in defense, added MageP and United, popped scapgoat. The piercing was great for dealing with GAF and Giant Orc. God I loved that wind/fire dragon format.

[@kramg1995]

Great video about mechanical chaser! An OP card in the first months of the game. Also a card that I would never own with that price tag😭🔥

[@chrisgonzalez6594]

Amazing video. This took me back through memory lane.

[@MrSilk13642]

Man I forgot how rough Yugioh art was lmfao. Also, 13:54 .. I had a deck revolving around Jinzo back in like 2003 and it was absolutely killer.

[@Raymander-c6e]

Cool video, hope we can see some good Time Wizard dules and more competitive content.

[@Drisurk]

I remember when Duel Links first came out and this same exact thing happened. It gave me so much nostalgia having a normal monster beat stick and just kept upgrading it as more sets came out.

[@mrnaughtycat]

The EU version of LOBEWD did not have pot of greed and a few others for some reason

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

If you think dropping 600 is insane wait until I tell you the car down payment of a deck called Tele-Dad...

[@CatManThree]

-Or Nekroz-

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

@CatManThree That's the mortgage payment.

[@RaineBans]

the thing i dont get about jirai gumo and dark elf is that why didnt people just use them as attack position walls? if opponent cant get over 2200 then jirai gumo is basically 2200 def. you could just only attack when it would be lethal and halving your life wouldnt matter

[@N12015]

Because A) Trap hole exists, meaning walls work better on defense due to surprise factor and trap hole not working on damage step. B) An attack position wall can be destroyed by mirror force, making them less reliable C) You can only search it with witch, which is a problem due to witch being semilimited and La Ginn also not being searched with Sangan. D) The point of attack position monsters is to break the enemy defense, that's why Stone wall having 1300 attack is important since it can destroy attacking witches. Still surprised it was not even used on side deck because it can break stone wall and is searchable, but I guess people played quite conservatively and just used traps for stone wall, and even nowadays is often a worse La Ginn.

[@RaineBans]

@@N12015 yh those are advantages over an atk position wall but i highly doubt people back then considered all of these. im pretty confident people just thought they arent worth the lifepoints

[@larakalevra2233]

No idea why youtube randomly decided to recommend me a video in a genre I havent thought about in 20 years - But this was a blast from the past, loved it. :)

[@j.t.8848]

This was a great nostalgia trip. Very fond memories of playing back then, I won a tournament at my local shop in 2002 but there was only like 7 people there.. haha. Weeks later the game took off and there were dozens and dozens there for tourneys, a lot of them were old bearded wizards. I stopped playing shortly after Labyrinth came out and pretty much went to MTG full time for a few years.

[@itachi9kitty]

I remember going to tournaments when there was only like 5-6 sets out and it was so true, you played with what you had, or traded at events. I quit going cause the last one I went to I got knocked out of the tournament by a person that had their deck built by the store owner and I considered that cheating and just lost all interest in going to anymore.

[@franckize]

the huge pause at 5:33 and the way you build it up made me think a sponsor was about to be mentioned and I rapidly tapped my screen like a dumbass 😂😂😂

[@Gvnrae]

If this became a series, this could eventually become the History of Yugioh part 2 by roobindale people have been begging for

[@malcontender6319]

Duelled a 3X Chaser user at our local, he did the expected pairing with Jinzo, Barrel Dragon and Limiter Removal. However, my signature card is Reverse Trap... Dude did not enjoy losing to a "3rd rate" duelist. 9:04 Jirai Gumo wasn't widely used because it's life halfing downside would quickly put you in range of a burn KO via Ookazi or Tremendous fire, so some players would run one or two burners.

[@Shadawgk]

mechanical chaser. pulled it at my 1st tournament when i was like 10. I even had a official price book and saw it was above 1k euro. it was insane

[@AvianDnD]

actually my first deck box was a cigarette pack i stole from my brother

[@TheRealSpellstar]

it's crazy how quickly these leaps in powercreep happened. You're talking in weeks and months about jumps in power level that should happen over multiple years.

[@ghosty918]

It happened slower in Japan, but the english version compacted the card releases and the power creep

[@lcychains]

Honestly in hindsight Dark Elf is just a much better card lol

[@Hyperdisk]

This video brings back memories, good and bad. I still feel guilty for being a brat. It was Christmas and I got a booster pack while my sister got kaiba. I opened mine right as she opened hers, I was disappointed said it wasn't fair, then immediately opened my next gift which was Yugis starter deck. I ended up with a starter deck and a booster, my sister had only got a starter deck...... Aside from that, I enjoyed playing Yu-Gi-Oh for a good while. Stopped when it started losing popularity at school. I miss playing with the homies, we had some good times. I've lost contact with everyone from that time.

[@demontamerbf18]

Even with how hard it was to get that card and all that, I wish I could've played YuGiOh back in the day as today I can't comprehend all the planning and strategy players do with the different types of cards released after the main game was created, like, synchro monsters onwards.

[@PsychoticSashimiS]

I finished the food I cooked right as you did your outro, felt poetic. I already knew this story but you did an excellent job keeping me hooked and delivering/editing this!

[@CardmarketYGO]

I'm happy to know I'm not the only one who watches KZbin while I cook... 👨‍🍳 Thanks for the love :) -Taylor

[@magicalnewsmaneditsbumpers4374]

The bulk random card decks are some of my favorite memories of yugioh, and duel links as well. I remember distinctly trying to get equip shot white viel ftk to work, but it didnt pan out. Rats!

[@ThatGreenGuy227]

please do more early history and evolution of the game videos. very interesting, and i'd love the see a full detailed progression and analysis on how it got from what we see here to "normal summon snake eye ash, gg."

[@Fencer_Nowa]

Mechchaser was always so cool to me since the anime. I love how even in paper for a time it was still an issue to deal with that truly demanded such repsect

[@100Hajduk]

How simple the game was.now i have to wait half jour for my opponent to xy/link/pendelum summons.and if i am lucky one,he will use only one spell card,not 6.and then there is aroma thing.i just resign.fuck that shit

[@TheStrongVirus]

This takes me back to when my brother played. He played a lot, taking cards from my deck that were meta, leaving me with a bad-ish deck. But I had loads of cards I loved. I remember he went crazy when I would get a high atk or high defence creature for its level. I was content with my 3 Dark Blades.

[@TensaDLuffy1776]

I think most of the rules we went by in my elementary school at the time was your deck had to be from booster packs since not everyone could get the starter decks which made it fair to all, we did a little more LP, was either 2500 or 3000 sometimes. We were allowed to have 2 monster reborns, but could only have in hand, so if you drew the second one you had to either use one of them immediately or if it was early into the game put it back into the deck and shuffle the deck or put it on the bottom of the deck.

[@therealkami]

I played back in that era, and on the back of a tiny bird I won a season trophy. It's a large Millenium Puzzle with my name on it. Pretty neat.

[@MrGhosta5]

Mechanical chaser was still very good because it was a machine and could be used with limiter removal. 7 color fish was still really good in water decks.

[@JYDollahsign]

I remember my very first Legend of Blue Eyes Booster Pack in 2002 as a kid...the game had just launched, and i was drawn in by the amazing display setup for the launch at a, sadly now closed, local game shop in my town, Game Closet. I was 12, and was there on my roughly weekly visit i routinely made to purchase my sweet, sweet DBZ TCG boosters or decks...i decided on some Blue Eyes Boosters instead, sucked in by the display and new cool looking game...legit in my first pack EVER, i pulled Tri-Horned Dragon! Didnt know it was a Secret Rare till i was way older, but i was so stoked i just remember being super excited lmao...good times man.....

[@animegx45]

Smiled like a supervillain watching this because I was the first person in my city to get a copy. Was a gift from the store owner. Told me not to trade it. Still have it to this day. It's also what inspired my forever hatred of Gagagigo.

[@Prunk09]

Really well written! I thankfully just played on the playground back then But seeing how impactful mech chaser was is funny. Especially because I was a kid running Jirai Gumo. Gotta love luck cards

[@YourFavoriteDaada]

great video i can show this to some of my friends to explain how yu gi oh was for me as a kid now that i got them decks and into the game ps. didnt have the money for chaser always lost to someone who did except like 2 locals back in the day