History of Tier 0 Decks - Part 1 | Yugioh TCG

A retrospective look back over the select few decks known as Tier 0, decks that took over 65% of representation in their respective formats.
Links
Twitter: / thelawygo
Twitch: / thelawygo
Video Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:12 - Chaos Control
7:14 - Tele-DAD
12:52 - Brief Mention of Dragon Ruler
15:02 - Nekroz
18:07 - Outro

[@aaronr.265]

Shoutouts to the guy that gentlemen’d out Djinn just to replace it with a Djinn in his side deck

[@TheDoubleA12]

Patrick Hoban

[@showtvbest]

Not Jeff Jones?

[@luckysevens6852]

A gentleman and scumbag all in one.

[@ajflater856]

That weevil shit

[@aluminumtarkus]

@@showtvbest No, it was absolutely Hoban. He even gloats about it in his book. I'm glad he ended up losing anyways. I'm pretty sure he was the one to even make the offer, which makes it that much worse.

[@NewtBannner]

I love how Konami’s response to DADs dominance was, “let’s print more broken Dark monsters!”

[@fatal_263]

It is kind of genius though

[@Sam_Hue]

*Tear Zero flashbacks*

[@moh.syafrianabie8899]

Money

[@A_Mistake]

I was hoping for the magical mention of Gentlemen Djin of siding out 1 in the main for the 2nd in the side.

[@feder373]

Oh yeah, that was actually made into a meme card: "A Hoban Plan", parodying "A Feint Plan".

[@rosewarrior706]

Yup and Konami had to make a rule about it

[@nightmare674]

@@rosewarrior706 really? which rule

[@felipemoreno5371]

Honestly thought this would just be a listing of the Tier 0 decks overtime but the video lived up to its name and I got a short history of yugioh. Pleasantly surprised.

[@ashharkausar413]

Dragon rulers and spellbooks was truly a unique time in yugioh. I had never seen cards output so many effects in a single turn and whip out such powerful monsters.

[@exclusiveextremo5799]

Dark Armed Dragon was also used a lot when Blackwings were released

[@feder373]

Ironically, Dad is the only Tier 0 deck prior to 2015 that did not just not win a World Championship, but didn't even make a single top 8 in WC either. Gladiator Beasts won in 2008 against some Lightsworns and Monarchs, and 2009 was won by 1 of the 2 Blackwing players, the other 6 on the top being Gladiator Beasts again. And that deck was removed from the meta by a mere Bestiari limit.

[@syaefullrizcky]

Because they not full power in the WC, remember WC has different banlist and card pool

[@feder373]

Until 2013 the WC banlist was the regular one used for all official events; the split between TCG and OCG was made that year. My theory is that the release of Gladiator Beast Gyzarus in May 2008 made the deck superior, since it could return from the Extra Deck and pop 2 cards every turn, with Bestiari popping another card, and since they played returning things to the deck, they never run out of resources. Also, Dad decks were stopped in their tracks by cards that disrupted the graveyard setup for the Dad, which Beasts did not need.

[@RealLockheedMartin]

Thanks for the video. I really wanted a look at *specifically this topic* like a week ago and lo and behold here it is.

[@averylr32]

loved this! this why i do my retrospectives on formats because its so much fun to go down memory lane!

[@andrianstefanus3958]

I literally watched this video for nekroz only just to relive my childhood for 5 min thanks bro

[@magiccardmaster9921]

Great to see my favorite Deck of all time teledad been talked about and DAD is my favorite yughio card it's just such a fun idea and it works great

[@HulktySSJ2]

Thank you so much for the praise! The original name was Neo-Dad, but despite being the original creator of the deck, I don't travel to events, so I'm not the one that popularized it. The other trend I started first was the use of 3x Upstart Goblin in many decks. The one that popularized it (Hoban), visited my local shop and lost to me in the final match. He made fun of me the first match for using them. After he lost, he ran out crying not taking his prizes. We never seen him again. Years later we seen him in an article talking about his 1st major tournament win using them and his explanation was the same I told him that he laughed about.

[@tallonalmeida2249]

Great vid! Looking foward for part 2

[@davidvaldovinos1969]

Can’t wait for the next episodes great video man

[@tyc4587]

This man really speaking like these decks are real entities. “Reared it’s head”, “the coveted tier 0 title”. Who covets? Great video, just had to point out the livening of inanimate objects

[@Lunathean]

2012 was my favorite year to play. So many good decks

[@JeffKGaming]

I could kiss you for being one of the only Yugitubers who pronounces "Envoy" properly.

[@jamespeake2606]

I mean it's pronounced Envoy, why do they struggle

[@tyllisvfx]

the pronunciation depends on where you're from

[@zacthemastodonranger]

Awesome work law keep it up

[@vanesslifeygo]

Ignition effect priority made quite the difference for Chaos Control, and various Pure Decks to come until the ruling change or the most hopeless time for Hopeless Dragons

[@pablovint]

Great content mate! Congrats

[@diamonddust4486]

I missed this on release, so I'm kinda glad it's in two parts.

[@SodaCat16]

WE LOVE UR CONTENT KING THANK U

[@johnjensen8743]

Shoutout to "Return From The Different Dimension" and "Cyber Stein" for completely controlling the meta for most of 2006. Great video nonetheless 👍🏽

[@MrNaruto7860]

Love the history videos

[@PatricioMarino]

Honestly didn't realise Nekroz was actually a Tier 0. Looking forward to the next 3 tier 0's. Is it SPYRAL / Zoo / Pepe ?

[@kkurrocas6494]

Yeah those were the ones in mind.

[@Greyhoundsniper]

Then splights, maybe tearlaments and doubt Adv. Prank kids

[@arogueoneadventure5604]

Orcust skystriker in december 2019 it reached the status of tier 0.

[@StellaEFZ]

@@Greyhoundsniper Splights didn't reach T0

[@andrejv.2834]

@@Greyhoundsniper None of those were ever tier 0

[@WyvernKnightBright]

Nice list, but as a Nekroz devout, who is still to this day upset about the level of short print EVERY Nekroz card was given in The Secret Forces, there were some small mistakes. Like, Trishula was never limited. People wanted Trishula limited (Despite the fact most player's only played one anyway...) But I believe it was Unicore who got limited, that or Brio as they both ended up there eventually, Rota went to 1 at some point, and Shurit was eventually banned alongside Construct and Towers to officially kill the deck and force Kozmo meta. (Which in hindsight, was super excessive, as Shurit quickly went from your only way to summon Trish/Valk to a dead brick so hard that player's were dropping him once he finally came off the list) I remember back then, people arguing over whether or not we could call Nekroz tier 0, as it didn't feel as suffocating as Dragon Rulers or Teledad. It also didn't help Nekroz wasn't winning as much as one would expect from such a large showing. In particular I remember there being a tournament with like a 75-80% Nekroz showing, only for the final round to end up BA vs. BA with the only two people who participated with Burning Abyss getting 1st and 2nd place. Which resulted in Nekroz only being tapped on the list whereas BA took a significantly harder hit.

[@thomasbitmail7937]

hello fellow Nekroz Chad. Indeed it was Unicore. Trishula was never touched aside from a fan made banlist in a community, where they thought it was the problem. hahaha

[@WyvernKnightBright]

@@thomasbitmail7937 Yep, the ARG banlist banned Trish, I remember. I actually went back to look at the list and it brings back some memories. Like, how people refused to play around Trish, and were tilted at Unicore for the wrong reasons. Trishula was literally just a 2700 beatstick if you didn't hold any cards in your hand, or didn't mindlessly fill your grave turn 1. It was most Nekroz deck's only form of removal and it could be switched off. People were mad at Unicore's negate, despite the fact it could be ran over by generic Rank 4's, like Dark Rebellion which was a staple at the time. Meanwhile it was mainly strong for it's flexibility, it was used as a searcher, Rank 4 material and as Nekroz's best form of recursion, which was a weakness of Nekroz in a metagame where everything else floated. It was the only reason Kaleido was even considered strong. Haha.

[@KP-np1ps]

Nekroz was definitely my fav format for sure. I always found the deck to be really skill intensive. That may have been the reason why there were some events with fewer showings. It wasn't as easy as "summon unicore and trish" every turn. There was a lot of resource management, knowing when to push, and when to hold. Trish was really important to keep in hand to stop the many targeting traps at the time. Also, dark law being 100 attack bigger than unicore was a realy pain in the side, forcing valks. I still try to play nekroz today since I love it so much. What hurts the deck now (and not then) is the action limit per turn (because of all the negates now). Nekroz can really only do like 5-6 actions a turn with the best of hands. So many HOPT and being limited to a max of 3 summons makes it tough to break boards.

[@danielwappner1035]

@@KP-np1ps what's that about being limited to 3 summons?

[@silentbandit1291]

Still my fav format to this day and play it with friends. In hindsight the only reason ba was ever a threat to nekroz was the amount of traps they played, a single brio bouncing back a Dante or two pretty much would win nekroz the game.

[@TheRealAquaz]

I miss the old times Dragonruler Dragunity was such an insane engine Spam. So great Tempest is back to 1. Really love playing Dragunity again. Loved the deck at release of Hidden Arsenal 3+4 and nowdays again. Also hyped to build an Despia / Shaddol / Tearelements engine spam

[@RTU130]

Same

[@ajemison3]

it always feels weird saying nekroz was tier 0. sure it was the best deck and clearly had the most representation but even before its nerfs i never felt as suffocated by it as i was by dragon rulers and prophecy

[@andrejv.2834]

There were some major tournaments where they had tier 0 representation, not at nearly the same level as pepe or zoo for example, but still enough to qualify They were in a similar position as splight in the ocg before their most recent banlist when it comes to tier 0 status

[@ssjduelistDD]

Nekroz is easily the weakest tier 0 deck we've had. Djinn and Unicore just countered BA and Shaddoll so hard.

[@andrejv.2834]

@@ssjduelistDD weakest modern tier 0 deck sure, but not in general Nekroz would absolutely crush teledad and chaos

[@sushipbestdeck8995]

@@andrejv.2834 Obviously he means in regard to that time period.

[@JudojugsVtuber]

I was a hardcore monarch player at the time (been my main deck for years even before the new support released) so i didnt really care too hard about djinn cause id just soul exchange their monster and they often couldn't out my boards and my side was packed with nekroz hate. Monarchs were unironically a solid rogue choice for most of the game's history....then they got new support that autoloses to a single ash blossom so they have to run a bunch of out of archetype engines to function anymore. Then floo was created which is just monarchs but better in every conceivable way.

[@TheAandJStudio]

Konami: How do we deal with TeleDAD. Fanbase: Ban DAD Konami: Lol limit.

[@iunnor]

Shoutout to Konami for keeping Dads in our lives.

[@Aihana_Etsu]

Looking forward to part 2

[@gorgoneuryale8748]

Gladiator Beasts also got tier 0 representation in a few events.

[@cooldes4593]

Link one

[@gorgoneuryale8748]

@@cooldes4593 2008 SJ Toronto

[@alicepbg2042]

@@gorgoneuryale8748 I can only find a top 16 for it... but 75% is quite something

[@maple1234567890321]

there were few more. Airblade turbo, dad return, etc

[@cooldes4593]

@@maple1234567890321 proof?

[@sunphoenix26]

I appreciate your choice of FM music.

[@vaporwingfauxmcloud1190]

I started playing Yugioh when the Utopia Structure deck was released that came with 1 number 39 utopia and 1 of that rank 3 XYZ. Shortly afterwards we got the Six Samurai Structure Deck that introduced us to the XYZ monster of Shien. All things considered, I was a Madolche player who played a haphazardly made Madolche deck with 2 hootcakes and none of Anjelly and Messengelato as those cards were between 30 each to 60 to 70 each with Messengelato being the more expensive one. I played against Spellbook, dragon ruler, a shark deck, and I think shortly afterwards Shadoll and Burning Abyss were introduced. Shortly after THAT I finally finished Madolche and got what I needed to play fully competitively. Considering how Nekroz and Qliphorts were introduced afterwards, I went to pick up a Shadoll deck and started working on Volcanic chain burn when it won at YCS Charleston in 2014 or whichever one yang zing, shadoll, qliphorts and nekroz were topping at...

[@joseruizdiaz9622]

Super good video!

[@goodandfren3926]

Good Video Law Man.

[@EvolutionSTUD10S]

Oh man, I loved GOAT format. Such good stuff, although I totally own my nostalgia for it. Surprised Cyber Dragon and Monarchs weren't Tier 0 based on the pojo standard. Monarchs in particular felt like they were 100% of the format for a good chunk of time. It was constantly cyber dragon into monarch every single game, though I guess it did have its counters.

[@jproductions1739]

There was one July back in '07 when unerrata'd Stratos was at 3, I think a major was held then and Diamond Dude Turbo variants took the entire top cut.

[@e.t.1947]

And when the world needed him the most he returned

[@hungerxhunger2548]

This is really good

[@LeMisterRai]

That outro music is so nostalgic

[@holydiver4988]

just in time for ruler-spell format 2

[@nightshard7651]

We even have the evilswarm deck to xyz summon and banish the rulers

[@josechamu240]

Whats that?

[@nnnp634]

@@josechamu240 Splight and Tearelements.

[@Shadow8332]

@@josechamu240 Splight and Tearelement, and exosister is the cheap counter to both decks.

[@drunkenpumpkins7401]

And don't forget that the bright minds at Konami released Snatch Steal from the banlist during the Nekroz era. It was only in the TCG, but still.

[@abendsonnewarriorcats9474]

And Now we have a New Tier 0 Deck

[@confetti7543]

u probably alr noticed but trishula was never restricted on the ban list. in july of 2015, they only hit shurit, chain, and djinn, and then in november the deck got axed with shurits banning and the limiting of both unicore and brionac, effectively murdering the entire decks engine. it remained a tier 2 rank 4 control strategy centered around valk until january where they e-banned the performage engine to hit pepe.

[@andrejv.2834]

I hope you don't forget to mention orcust, they at least deserve a brief mention like the dragon rulers as there were a few ycs tournaments where they had the representation, with striker orcust being the most popular variant

[@jtdarkman]

All my tops I owe to orcust...and iblee lol

[@jtdarkman]

@@carnivalgenesiscross9055 never tried that but with dragoon seems legit

[@jtdarkman]

@@carnivalgenesiscross9055 I like where this is going

[@timlazard5623]

I like your presentation and your explanations. The only criticism I would say I would have liked if you spent more time telling people about returndad. It was so powerful they had to make an emergency ban list in the middle of the Meta. Playing through that era I can say. I have never played against a deck with the utility of cards at that time, that was so hard to play against.

[@Rayogami]

This video is pure gold about g(old) tier 0 decks. I was looking for a tier 0 decks video for my friend who's new in the game but he only speaks spanish so I looked for spanish videos and there is this one kid that translated this video but kept saying stuff like bls or chaos sorc "destroying a monster by effect" or calling Envoy of the End's effect a spell speed 2 eff. That's what happen when u let kids have internet :(

[@chengliu872]

9:20: I still remember when someone closed out a game with a Crush Card Virus/Barrel Behind the Door combo.

[@Fanofstuff]

really liked the video, just if you do more of these, try to use original text for card images on screen, OG crush card virus is 1000x stronger than current version, and goyo doesnt make sense in tele-dad with the errata that it needs an Earth tuner, Anyways, awesome video, love the history

[@nathanghoul684]

Ou man I loved Nekroz back in the days

[@sebelumkupergi]

Thanks, its make me easier to explain to my friends who just picked Yu-Gi-Oh from master duel, and they don't understand why some card are on banlist.

[@GonzaloLozano-mb2sr]

Love the forbidden memories music

[@martytappets]

I appreciated the Chris hogan clip.

[@TheMathi20]

A little correction: DMOC was never really part of the "Chaos" or "Dark Magician" archetypes, because in japanese the name is written with different Hiragana/Katakana than the "Chaos" or "Dark Magician" Archetypes. Outside of Japan it depends/depended on what the local judge says/said.

[@alicepbg2042]

a Frog the Jam / slime toad situation I see

[@chronic-joker]

@@alicepbg2042 chaos is not treated as an archtype as no card searches "chaos" making it an unofficial archtype.

[@alicepbg2042]

@@chronic-joker i know. But dm is

[@josephsheehan6079]

@@chronic-joker edit I looked it up and yes Chaos Form summons a BLS or a card with Chaos in its name so it’s not an “unofficial” archetype

[@chronic-joker]

@@josephsheehan6079 for a card to be viewed as a real archtype it needs a card that goes through the deck for commonly named cards rather then cards that work with a given name. it's part of why digibugs aren't a real archtype.

[@epyonsystem1869]

This was cool

[@nightingaleseraph]

PTDN was also the introduction of decks being dependent on cards that were cost prohibitive.

[@GranMaj]

I am glad that we had no tier 0 deck as of lately. Tier 0 deck surfaced when the balance of the game were basically non existence. Now we on average got at least 2-3 viable deck with similar power level on each format.

[@pinklyfingerer4081]

I remember when having a blue eyes and masked beast in your deck with 3 mirror force and magic cyclender was the meta

[@anggaihza3074]

That's amazing

[@Bleighckques]

I appreciate the FM music

[@iunnor]

In 2008 I remember I spent a year and tons of money on packs just to get a PTDN DAD for my deck, because if you weren’t playing DAD you weren’t really competing. When i finally completed my teledad deck, everything got limited and i quit playing.

[@borreloadsavagedragon]

Nice video

[@Yakuo]

tysm

[@ABOUNDTANA]

Cant wait for spyral and pepe to be covered

[@eavyeavy2864]

No.

[@luispozuelos8626]

I completely agree but back then no one thought solemn judgement was good but if if you did run 3 at the time it would be a different stoy

[@11guitarbro]

Fuegooooooo

[@Falentino21]

Dark armed dragon is the reason my friend still hate me till this day because i always laugh menacingly when i summon it

[@four-en-tee]

Oh wow, Zoodiac gets its own video

[@christopherhale3140]

Side note about Tele-DAD since the video didn't bring it up: the banlist that brought it down was actually a Godzilla Threshold on Konami's part. Normally banlists come out on fixed schedules, but for this one Konami- in a move they had never pulled before, and have to date only done one other time since- released an _emergency banlist_ out of season, for the explicit purpose of nuking Tele-DAD so it wouldn't utterly dominate an upcoming tournament. This is the kind of story that makes me absolutely love the history of the metagame.

[@TheLawYGO]

Actually this was not the first emergency banlist. Cyber-Stein before it was the first emergency ban in December 2006.

[@CFxRenaissance]

Was Frog FTK not Tier 0? Can't really remember that format other than it being solitare lol

[@tyranastar4891]

i remember being 13-14 when Nekroz dropped. Id built a pretty competitive Infernoid deck that i was comfortable with - it was full of meta staples , reasoning was ridiculous and life was good - Nekroz immediately changed that and almost ruined YGO for me. Nekroz players had such a better deck than other meta players at the time (Qlis, BA , Shaddolls) that it made locals a chore unless you came up against another non Nekroz player

[@sheflashedus246]

six sams in duellinks lol

[@leonardobiancalana2231]

Blackwing, lightsworn and gladiator beast

[@SilentHollow69]

Can I get the names of the background music?

[@matthiasek]

Let's shout out Ishizu Tearlaments

[@zojirushi1]

What song is playing 1:55?

[@Jorch101]

Still waiting for the next episode of del links history :(

[@yukikuran911]

My old XYZ machine deck consistently beat chaos back in the old days

[@intuitivelymagician2076]

Good times I git back into game with teledad

[@matteosavino1521]

Soundtrack at 1:51?

[@TheAwkwardBubbles]

the only deck at my locals that could handle early DAD versions was my control Demise deck.

[@spookycornershop9467]

here we are in teir 0 tear-ishiz format :^)

[@zxien1]

Forgot zoodiac. A lot of people say it wasn't tier 0 because of true draco, but if you count the "true draco/zoodiac hybrids" it took up about 80-90% of the top placements depending on the tournament. Before true draco even got released it had almost a 100% top cut finish.

[@Marcusjnmc]

engines don't count if the deck is different, it was tier zero during the black sheep format that lasted 2 weeks anyway, & no, it didn't, paleozoics were a meta contender before master peace released

[@zxien1]

@@Marcusjnmc This isn't true palezoics were only good against it for one major event before people realized substitute fusion was a thing. Also, when true draco came out 50% of the tops were pure zoodiac, 30-40% were hybrid zoodiac true draco and only 10% were pure true draco. As for the argument "engines don't count if the deck is different...." in teledad format there were plenty of plasmaDAD and zombieDad strategies going around that were chalked up as just being a "teledad strategy." I guess teledad isn't tier 0 by your definition then :^)

[@Marcusjnmc]

@@zxien1 paleozoics were a significant part of the meta until the release of master peace, the last event before then had a paleo vs zoodiac final, and fusion sub was only a tech until chakanine released and made it full power , that's the only time zoodiac was tier 0, I don't particularly care about TeleDAD, but yes, if one build of the deck was never 2/3 of a top cut I would not consider it tier 0, just meta warping and unhealthy for deck variety.

[@rafaelbrites3607]

if have releaser in duel links, necroz would be tier 0 there too.

[@fernandoguillen5996]

My favorite Tier 0 were the Nekroz, the best archetype / Saint Seiya reference of all Yugioh

[@alfredokusuma9511]

Lol

[@Adjaleva1]

Why Saint Seya references?

[@fernandoguillen5996]

@@Adjaleva1 Nekroz of Trishula is similar to Seiya with Odin's Armor

[@l3errie]

I have no idea why this was recomended for me but i wont complain

[@AFCManUk]

Let's not forget Cyber-Stein OTK. ONLY One SJ Championship win, and then Cyber-Stein became the first ever Emergency Banned Card in Yugioh.

[@mahmood481]

Omg the first deck on the list (Chaos) was insanely powerful, no wonder it got banned

[@HelloWorld-uw5wj]

You forgot the ultimate Tier 0... anyone who had 3 Mechanicalchasers

[@ogmike2010]

No mention of windups or Dino rabbit tho?

[@Marcusjnmc]

they were dominant but never had that top cut rep

[@Sehon13Ultd]

6:55 this is a nitpick but the phrase is “far and away”, not “by far and away”

[@Pr0fridge]

No Diamond Dude Turbo? There was about a month when Stratos first released where DDT was unbeatable.

[@youwayo]

0:53 except for a banlist :P

[@XxMr1XxX]

Funny thing is, Tele DAD was never really tier 0. Yes it was the most played and extremely strong, but playing 3 copies of oppression in the main deck, completely destroyed it. The best deck at that time was oppression apprentice monarch, but people found out way too late about it.

[@garonwilliams9148]

No the fuck it wasn't

[@ethribin4188]

Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks. The only T0 decks that didnt reach T0 status. Because they were the only T0 decks that existed at the same time as another T0 deck.

[@Pikatwig16]

Honestly curious, was Lunalight ever at tier 0? I know the archetype was strong, but I'm just wondering is all

[@hannahtcg1080]

the deck was okay, like maybe tier 2. also the archetype itself isn’t very strong, it was specifically due to the fact that tiger was at 3.

[@looksmatteronly]

lunalight zoodiacs was

[@Marcusjnmc]

@@hannahtcg1080 it was clearly tier 1 during orcust right before mermaid got banned

[@juliankirby9880]

12:40 Jeff Jones!!!! That guy and his group taught me the most important thing in yugioh. Floating cards through the deck. Legal cheating.

[@gottalovegaara92]

Six Samurais were also Tier 0 for a brief period of time

[@lordpaulphilippfernandez9904]

Is that back when Gateway wasn't limited?

[@gottalovegaara92]

@@lordpaulphilippfernandez9904 Gateway was released before the Legendary Six Samurais were and while the deck was still good and fun to play it hadn’t seen much competitive play up until their release. After Kizan, Kageki, Kagemusha, Smoke Signal and Legendary SS Shien came out they suddenly boomed and won every tournament until the next banlist came out and limited Gateway.

[@Marcusjnmc]

@@gottalovegaara92 winning every tournament doesn't make a deck tier zero

[@awsometings]

No mention of GB's being tier 0? That was dominant post DAD returns and just up to tele-dad.

[@raypaulkidz1063]

Outro song

[@uryu251]

What about plants?? Tengu plant synchro after tele dad??

[@andrejv.2834]

Was never tier 0