I miss Control Decks

[@htothearris]

OMG yes I love Raye, I would die for Sky Striker Ace - Raye, this support card is going to change my life and it's going to be the best card ever.

[@DarkAuraLord]

This, but unironically

[@Talguy21]

The problem to me is that being a control deck in the modern day pretty much has to be so overwhelming in their pressure as to fall into Stun, or they have to be fast enough to kill like Midrange. Because combo decks in Yugioh can put up end boards turn 1 that you can't beat AND can kill you through a board going second if they find breakers. Midrange can too. Stun decks can at least try to break enough of a board to turn the rest of it off more permanently so they can win later. A true control deck like old Striker doesn't have either the kill power or lockdown to survive a modern game. At this point, you either have to be so good at control that your opponent literally can't play the game with as few points of handtrap interaction as possible, or you've got to be fast enough to consistently OTK. Control decks fall into a weird place where they're too fair. lol

[@yy5173]

very very good comment

[@zoltorortegus6259]

You might of thought so a month ago, but I think they did pretty damn well with Vanquish Soul, which strikes the perfect balance.

[@four-en-tee]

@@zoltorortegus6259 Ban TCBOO and come back to me with your results

[@georgfolwerk2531]

My next deck will be Qliphort Stun. I personally love the towers and I like the idea of using both normal and special summoning for pendulum stuff. In this deck I will be playing time-tearing morganit because I like this card a lot and I guess the grind game is also cool. For the opponent I got skill drain/ lose 1 turn/ summoning limit. Also the turns will be so much quicker.

[@Talguy21]

@@georgfolwerk2531 I'm personally really not a fan of floodgating people. I prefer playing midrange so that my decisions are what's messing up the opponent's turn, not a single card I just flip. Plus, grindy games are my favorite. c:

[@In.New.York.I.Milly.Rock.]

I think, relating to what Josh said, we should define better the term "control", before defining if we want them to exist. It is sometimes used too generously. Striker, on one hand, absolutely has decision-making that relies on game knowledge, but the fact that people unironically call Umi "control" instead of "stun" is sad. I'm all for actual control decks, and I'm aware sometimes they require a little bit of a combo spice so they can actually kill the opponent this decade, but if making it stronger relies on the "control" tools being more generic and floodgate-y instead of offering bigger pay-offs for better players, then I think the game is better without control decks. Mystic Mine Striker was not a control deck. Sure, make the turn 3 Striker mid range, but keep turn 1 control. Make the requirements for the opponent to control cards or smth, idk. I like when my opponent outplays me by properly setting up their limitation-based interruptions, chain blocking and selectively punishing my plays. I *LOVE* losing to good players. I hate when someone monke flips me out of the game. Summarizing: Actual control is always based. Some "control decks" are not actually control, tho.

[@blind0wl123]

The problem is that guru "control" and inspector boarder stun convinced people that a control deck was just a bunch of floodgates that stop your opponent from playing

[@NinthSettler]

That is because it's exceedingly difficult for a game to go beyond turn 3 any other way.

[@bl00by_]

I still don't understand why guru control is called like that. It should be called guru stun, but some brain dead person came up with it and the hivemind for some reason agreed.

[@rinoportier556]

@@bl00by_ because theoretically the main concept behind the deck is indeed a control one: sit on guru and use yet simple but strong interaction, to gain more advantage each turn. But the "problem" is that you have a lot of free space to play strong cards to support the strategy, and floodgates only happen to be some of the best cards to play in yugioh since 2017/2018.

[@georgfolwerk2531]

Idk, the term control doesnt make much sense to me. In the video Joshua said that control is, when your opponent can play the game, but you can interrupt it. For me this just means negates and is this just a combo deck then? In magic there are control decks, because they exist a cost (mana) for doing stuff. In YGO you can do pretty much anything when your play is legit. So for me it exist only combo decks (meta) or anti-combo decks (stun/ anti-meta).

[@bl00by_]

@@georgfolwerk2531 Just look at Sky Striker and you will understand what it means.

[@robertbauerle5592]

Most yugioh players don’t understand what control is. Labrynth is very close to control, but the thing that separates it is that control decks are almost exclusively reactive. Labrynth has a lot of proactive cards. Unchained, fire king, tear, purrely, kashtira, etc. these are mid range decks with control elements. They have restrictions or just don’t synergies enough with combo decks to turn into the pile decks, but they have a lot of proactive cards that let them set up a board where they can then play like a control deck and react to opponents plays. I’m not sure traditional control could exist in modern yugioh, it would have to be an archtype that can play almost exclusively from the hand, since trying to play from a board position would probably be too slow. Something like an archtype of hand traps, but not dogshit like psy-frames were, or as negate-oriented. Think of cards like the new high avatar kirin, labrynth furniture cards, havnis, but the entire archtype is all cards that can play reactively like that. I think that’s what it would take. And to prevent it from becoming a mid-range strategy the cards would have to not be completely proactive, like how havnis needs action from the opponent to trigger.

[@LS-qs9ju]

Feels like Havnis design is the future of Yugioh, and Konami seems to agree because they keep releasing card like Havnis. Labrynth, Kirin, Rescue ACE Impulse, the top three deck in OCG have their own Havnis. Looking at their effect, compared to Havnis, seems like Tearlament is 5 years too early.

[@abdurachmanromzy4778]

Nah,they'll never exist and wont ever reborn in any shape or form The turn people abuse so many card into "engine" was a critically downfall to traditional control gamestyle (thus indirectly push konami designer to make cards became faster than before) Because those who had better advantage most likely win the game And speed (in term of board presence/card advantage) is clearly one of them Or going 2nd lab that able to set their own trap in opponent turn was definitely better than set card pass Like "Why would you play pure runick,when stun/engine variant was clearly better?" Or furniture lab that instanly eliminate trap card/trap deck weakness (which is require to set its trap first in your own turn) in general Either control would became its archetype main advantage or just blend into useful tool in singular card But wont exist as whole deck main mechanic

[@opssoldier3316]

@@abdurachmanromzy4778youre pretty right. The reason furniture and runick stun work so well is because their engine fixes the issues that the game has. You really can’t get around that without those additions.

[@georgfolwerk2531]

Ty for your comment. I think that many players think very vaguely of the term "control" but I think you got a good grasp of what it means. Thinking back to my Magic:TG time I loved control (I played black-blue) so you had a lot of spells that would just negate opponents' spells. But in contrast, there is no instant-speed negate (for summoning) in YGO (in the sense of handtrap). Yeah you can use Effect-Veiler so it doesn't have an effect but most decks can still use the negated body to climb into link/xyz so sometimes it's not worth it. The main problem with control decks is that the current meta is tough. Going first you would need a lot of negates (since you don't want to play floodgates (since this is stun)) and going second a lot of board breakers because usually control sucks against aggro. So your deck would be exactly combo.

[@Capta1nTD]

I agree on the focus on being reactive defines a control deck, which is why I think Vanquish Soul should definitely be considered a control strategy. It has "proactive" elements aka the searches off Jiaolong and draws off Borger, but that's just a method of building resources and advantage to react with. They need to get their attributes to play, and once they do they usually sit on rock, wait for a problem card to appear in a column then they send out Razen to deal with it, then Caesar Valius. While using their backrow in the same way, waiting for chokepoints to then punish the opponent. The deck really just focuses on building advantage and reacting to your opponent for a few key disruptions. Which is imo what a control deck is all about.

[@God_is_a_High_School_Girl]

In Magic, we have a similar distinction between control and stun, which we call stacks. A control deck plays a lot of counterspells, effect negates, and creature manipulation, while stacks focuses on static effects that prevent opponents from attempting plays at all. The problem I think Yugioh slammed face first into was fusing control effects into combo cards. Think your Barrone de Fleurs and your Zeuses. The game reached a point where the goal of your combo was to amass a myriad of control effects, instead of separating the two into distinct and opposing playstyles, as the two should be. Every deck became both a control deck and a combo deck at the same time.

[@DualSwordBesken]

Should be noted in Magic, at the micro level when discussing decks stax gets separated into its own category much like differentiating Burn and Zoo but both bring aggro but at a macro level of discussion, we lump control and stax together.

[@joshprice4855]

I have nothing to add. I'm just gonna comment to push this higher up for other people to see because it's really good.

[@bobbobbob321]

I mean yeah that's why I never really understood the distinction between "control" and "combo" in modern yugioh. You're just building up like 10 different interruptions anyways, the reason why classical control decks suck is because combo decks do literally what control are trying to do but better

[@four-en-tee]

We had a modern control deck: Ishizu Tear. A lot of people did not like it whatsoever, even though I thought it was gas. A control deck in modern Yugioh cannot succeed if it isn't fast enough to compete with modern combo decks, unless its playing stun cards. That's the current dilemma we're in, and frankly, it comes off as though most fans of modern Yugioh just don't like control decks. And i can't blame them too much, god knows i fucking hate Altergeist. If you really want to buff older control decks, the game has to slow down. That isn't something Konami is willing to do, they're dead set on speeding up the game until its ran into the ground. Either that, or they could give control archetypes an in-archetype card that's effectively Painful Choice or some other banned card. Salad already plays Bufferlo because its PoG.

[@zerochill4096]

The thing about Control Decks is that for a Control Deck to be good, they need a win condition. The win conditions of Control Decks from a few years ago are kind of lacking as today's midrange Decks have better win conditions while also being able to grind. Control Decks aren't entirely out of the picture yet as Labrynth and Vanquish Soul are still control-oriented Decks that still see a lot of success (and it's not because of Tcboo that Vanquish Soul does well either. They just happen to not be as hurt by it as other decks are). Better yet, why not retool older Decks that can benefit from Control playstyles with support? Spellbook Prophecy is a huge one as the identity of the Deck currently feels confused and unimpressive, but retooling them to be control-oriented by giving them a boss that has strong interactions with Spellbook cards might be the way to revive the playstyle

[@alexygo4243]

I think what they did recently to Sky Strikers was really great particularly the new link-2 that acts as a BP Raigeki (Rayegeki).

[@cladiosanchez6865]

Makes linkage, and the new one that summons Roze an Ftk which im totally fine with tbh. Get access code lines out of my ED

[@alexygo4243]

​@@cladiosanchez6865 doesn't the monster that summons Roze lock you out of non-machine ED plays? But yeah the new support seems like a step on the right direction maybe except the link-4 hahaha! They could have made Sky Striker Ace - Accesscode Talker but they didn't.

[@jasonl.7170]

​@@alexygo4243it does.

[@darkstorm2579]

@@alexygo4243 Yeah, Cyanos locks you to Machine ED monsters when you use its effect, making Accesscode unreliable in Sky Striker.

[@awesumsauce24]

I think vanquish soul kinda counts as control with how it kinda just ends on rock and hand advantage

[@ugh5880]

man I hate that stun players have appropiated the term "control" with stuff like "Guru Control" and "Umi """""""Control"""""" "

[@queenbrightwingthe3890]

Umi is still a control deck as long they dont tech in Gozen.

[@GizmekGalaxy]

I don’t think you can “fix” control deck’s issues without fundamentally changing a lot of things in the game (such as the speed and insane extension every deck can potentially have,etc). Cuz like its issues are mostly tied to the decks themselves and the general environment they have to compete in.

[@renaldyhaen]

That's why I always say Hugin is the main problem of Runick, limiting her is the best option. Hugin is the only monster that can have good synergy with both STUN and Combo. STUN always appreciates how Hugin protects their floodgate, by suddenly chaining Runick Quick-spell and summoning Hugin to the opponent's backrow removal. This non-OPT and consistent protection make the floodgates harder to remove. Then for combo, we can see Hugin always be the core of every combo variant like Naturia (discard the trap), Spright (free lv. 2), and Fur Hire (Tribute for Rookie). Limit or ban Fountain will kill the main strength of Runick Control style. This field spell is the reason why their control style is more powerful than any other control card like Sky Strikers. . I blame Powercrept for the lack of control aspect in this era. STUN may be the only option to play control in this era, knowing how powerful modern decks are now. But usually, people refuse to understand this problem and demand powercrept again and again every time Konami releases new cards. . I don't like the "fast game" in YGO. Because for me, this is too "luck-based", imagine you need to draw a specific card to prevent your opponent from their full power and a chance to play, when your opponent can use half of their deck to make a consistent powerful board. Or vise versa, a player auto-lose because their opponent draw a specific card that destroy entire play.

[@NoraNoita]

Runick is just cheating out quickplay spell from the hand on your turn, if they actually had to set them and use them that way, like traps, I would see them as less toxic. but they in my eyes generate way too much value and are allowed to recycle way too much. Like call Labrynth toxic or playing on the opponents turn yada-yada, they still have to have cooclock to use traps on the turn they had been set, and even then, vs Runick, if you didn't first activate cooclock, you can't react to them destroying your set trap before you can activate it. Oh and have fun trying to recover 20+ of your deck from the banish pile as well. The banish part is the most annoying aspect to me about Runick, if they didn't have that part, I'd be fine with the archetype. or if it was just 1 card from the deck banished, that's fine, but like always 3 minimum and stuff, is just too much.

[@Ragnarok540]

I hate when people don't know the difference between Stun and Control. If your deck needs a floodgate to function, is not control, is stun.

[@queenbrightwingthe3890]

100% this. Control decks is like Ninja that tries to control what you are allowed to do without hiding behind floodgates. You could call trap decks like Lab/Trap Tricks control decks aswell cause they also control the board without playing floodgates. The moment you tech in floodgates then its no longer a control deck but a stun deck.

[@monkeylemur]

My personal definitions that I use from observing how others define decks were always these: Combo: relies on barfing your entire deck on your first turn or lose Mid-range: wins at turn 3/4, struggles if duels last longer due to running out of copies of resources. Control: doesn't rely on continuous floodgates, recurs resources and interruptions better than non-control decks. Late-game: Runicks and Sky Strikers and Paleos that wins at turn 5+ Stun: Doesn't necessarily recur, seeks to win games off of continuous effects that prevent interactions So any deck that relies on drawing hand traps or destruction or 1 for 1 negations are control. They're mid-range control if they interrupt on their first opp turn and recurs resources to interrupt on their winning turn 3/4 turns Sky Strikers were late game control in my eyes because they draw often for hand traps and recur their interruptions for 3 turns. They outlast mid range decks and find it difficult to end on their 2nd turn. Runicks were late game control with Naturia because you slowly whittle down resources with removal and interruptions, but stun with floodgates Stuns are inherently late-game

[@xCorvus7x]

7:11 Well, when Runick was designed one might have expected that to be enough but by now card design theory should have learned that combo decks don't care about giving up a battle phase as long as their position is strong enough.

[@zephyrrrr4813]

The biggest issue with most control decks is imo maintaining advantage through disruptions. Cards that are + more, or still do things when destroyed or more gy effs. Theres a reason in magic the control colour is also the carddraw colour. Its why runics work, fountain gives an actual resource loop for your pop, mst, or imperm. The advantage loop for most control decks is just not enough rn.

[@abcrx32j]

I think at this point we're using control as " grindy backrow deck that doesn't have many plays on their turn" but at current ygo speed Lab, Traptrix and VS can be seen as control decks

[@miotakamiya]

I would love to see some Weather Painter support (also since we have only 6 painters out of 7 colours of the rainbow), to be able to extend and to have a plan B if your Rainbow gets outed. It’s an insane control deck on paper, being able to dodge almost any interruption and controlling everything the opponent do, but the deck is slow (and bad for nowadays standards) that the only way to make it somewhat work, if you’re lucky enough, is with a massive usage of floodgates. Usually you play floodgates not in side deck if your deck loses without and in the case of the Weather Painters is because the deck has been left to die (yes, the support from DIFO was very good but still too damn slow, that’s a fact)

[@Capta1nTD]

I loved the Weather Painter support but the deck was just too slow compared to the decks around it for it to really see much success. A few more key cards could definitely push it over the edge into relevance and I really hope so, Weather Painters are my favorite deck and they embody control.

[@polodoskyz]

summarizing: control: cool / stun: cancer midrange: cool / combo: cancer

[@mileserwin]

[Boss Music Starts Playing]

[@metalmariomega]

"Midrange" is such a miscellanous category that you can fit a ton of Control focused strategies in there(Naturia Runick is basically just that for example, and modern Salamangreat also fits all the boxes). The real issue with "grindy" decks in the modern metagame is that the existence of "Combo" end boards and FTKs has warped the game to a point where any deck that would want to run a consistent advantage engine is forced to run a bunch of non-engine disruptions(i.e. hand traps) or blowouts designed to kill those boards to stop those deck styles from turning a game into a "nongame", so the advantage loops are often the first cards dropped from a deck to ensure a consistent interruption level that can shut off opposing OTKs, instead focusing on immediate draw power over recovery/recursion. My opinion on the matter is that every deck IS already either forced into a Combo setup or a "Stop the Combo" style of Control to be successful right now, the reason "Midrange" decks are considered better than both is because they can lean into either direction as desired, making them less a deck type and more of an actual goal of deckbuilding. Combo decks theoretically should lose harder to board wipes than Midrange since they put all their resources into a board built to end a game immediately, while a good "Midrange" board has enough interruptions to ensure a Combo deck can never get to that point, and can simultaneously recover from supposed "blowouts" as long as they don't overextend. All the "kill buttons" in the game kind of make recovery feel pointless to focus on though, so everything winds up looking like Combo to outsiders, even things like Linkage OTK can make people scared to leave their board empty for even a single turn.

[@baneoffools8053]

I feel like thats why formats like edison are growing in popularity, that format has way more variety in terms of playstle than modern yugioh regardless of how you feel about retro formats

[@revengenow3681]

Edison format have agro deck

[@geek593]

It sucks that we have to disappear 13 years into the past to get a healthy meta game to play.

[@retana6135]

Of course not, if there is something to highlight about the current game it is how different the strategies are compared to the rest of the formats (even from recent years) they all have unique mechanics and completely different ways of playing that no one has seen, this is even more notable with decks like nemleria, centurion, mikanko and unchained. Edison for his part is nothing more than obtaining resources until you have a strong monster, just varying the ways in which you obtain these resources and reach them (like machina, heroes and synchro), I don't think it's a bad thing, but it shouldn't be pretend the game is so varied

[@aliciawazo1405]

Pure runick might not exists competitively, but I am proud to play it. The win condition is deckout, with only runick cards, and I play no floodgate. I just gain a lot of LP, so much so that I can run ancient leaf. The deck is fun that way

[@BirbRawor]

Rescue-ace was control No? They were slow enough before diabellstar cards. They just recycle to the moon and control what you can do with its backrow until you got to lethal range.

[@otterfire4712]

Plunder Patroll is a good control archetype. Unfortunately, its exploitable weaknesses keep it out of the meta. I feel like Rescue Ace is a control deck with it out valuing the opponent and choking out resources. Ninja is what I'd consider a control deck with it's recent support.

[@zephyrrrr4813]

Rescue ace is super midrangey they assemble damage super fast and their board is just a casual 5 interactions in most cases. Plunder fits the bill yeah it's just so badly placed in little knight format

[@DocBoxface]

It's frustrating to me that all the new cards seem to be playing into the ask your opponent how many hand traps they drew and if less than X just tell them to scoop

[@DualSwordBesken]

I find it kind of funny that Yu-Gi-Oh tries to use these play style archetype names like combo, control, midrange, etc so strictly with no mixing but the line of what is what is so blurry. Yet in Magic, the line between these archetypes is very clear but we are fine mixing them where we feel, like Affinity or Bogles are aggro combo or Twin was often considered a tempo control combo deck.

[@randomUser2121]

I feel we're too far gone to pretend a control deck can success without stun

[@catisticallyspeaking]

What I'm hearing is that we need to ban generic game enders like accesscode

[@Ragnarok540]

Banning is not the solution to this, they need to make better in archetype bosses so people gravitate towards those instead of generic payoffs.

[@Xero-rr2ol]

or or just ban the generic extra deck monsters. half the time its not they are bad cards its more why play this. when u can play this instead.@@Ragnarok540

[@BatmannotBruceWayne1]

@@Ragnarok540that’s something they need to do as well, but cats point is that Accesscode by itself accelerates the gameplay, and in order to slow the game back down, it’s one of the standout cards that needs to be dealt with

[@bl00by_]

​@@BatmannotBruceWayne1*sigh* It's time to get out the old reliable *dusts off borrelsword*

[@dominikkowalczyk3845]

Another problem with implementing control back into ygo is the amount of unconditional floating on monsters and the fact that gy is a second hand. Also with the amount of cards that trigger in banished pile(originaly these cards were considered "removed from play"). The fact that returning cards to the hand is usually better than destroying cards(because gy effects) is baffling. There are so little ways of efficiently removing cards in comparison to efficient starters/extenders. That's why I'm thinking about buying a dogmatika deck, because nowadays the best kinds of removal is to make sure they don't get access to their extenders in the first place. You want to summon striker dragon? I hope you have a way of getting a copy from the gy into your ed.

[@francisbartoszewski2284]

As long as Thrust add Evenly is a thing, Control decks don't exist.

[@martijnhertog4802]

Ninja fits under control and is a fun deck. It only feels to fair most off the time.

[@GoldCobra314]

The Deck is so fun and interactive. If all Decks would be Like this, yugi would be so much more exciting

[@Kylada-o5t]

Arent R-Ace control? They do not make a lot of actions, their power is in managing interactions, and they have good grind.

[@t-vann48]

I think the problem Yugioh has had with control decks is that they are generally built around 2 things, extremely strong advantage engines with a lot of draws and searches and small 1 for 1 interactions. The 1 for 1's just genuinely arent strong enough in the modern meta and every single time those advantage engines just get adopted into another deck. Runnick is a great example of this. The control pieces are good smaller interaction pieces to add onto your nuts spright boards, but on their own what do they really do? Runnick fountain is an insane advantage engine, but why would you ever play it on it's own when it can do so much more paired with another archetype? I feel like the only way to make a control deck not fall into this is to make it extremely xenophobic, all kinds of locks and shit so it cant play with other decks and just give it interaction pieces out the ass.

[@irresponsiblecaptain851]

Yeah I can't think of a modern deck that plays a more traditional control style. Every "control" player at my locals is just main decking anti-spell and there can only be one

[@yy5173]

What would y’all classify Labrynth??

[@WShoup9818]

It can be stun or control just depends on how you build it.

[@felixargyle3659]

Furniture variants are usually control, floodgate and Trap heavy variants are usually stun. You can also make combo variants with things like Resonators to go into RDA stuff. A big castle deserves awesome dragons.

[@Synactive]

tbf midrange is so big in md rn, i honestly would not be shocked at all to see control make a comeback sometime, i do fully agree we need more control stuff cause control decks are pretty interactive and is an underrepresented strategy rn

[@rinnepy]

The one thing that I like about yugioh is when I make a board and summon my boss monsters and then my opponent breaking my board and then coming back from it, but the problem is in turn 2 or 3 someone just dies because after they break my board or when I comeback someone just otk's someone and that just takes away the fun of back and forth from the game.

[@lucascerbasi4518]

I really like back and forth as well, but, since ygo is just a fast game by design, having a back and forth for 4 turns can *sometimes* feel exhausting, and any more than 4 turns can be just straight up torturous, especially when you take into consideration the game's complexity and the fact that it is played in a best of 3. 2~3 games with 5+ turns, each turn lasting anywhere from 4 to 9 minutes just sounds like too much, plus losing to time is extremely frustrating. I really feel like 3 turns is the ideal turn count for this game, although, 4 can *sometimes* be pretty fun.

[@ziggystardust1973]

I miss control decks :( I still try to play sky striker as a control deck in Master Duel, but it's not all that great. Widow Anchor control just isn't cutting it anymore

[@Kaos9696]

Control decks need to generate a lot of free advantage without it being able to use those resources to combo

[@RedGrave_Chill]

From my understanding is control decks need to main Amanowato then xyz into super starslayer... Floodgates are also necessary as well a combination of them can give you success... Control and burn decks are the most forgotten about decks in all of Yu-Gi-Oh...

[@qedsoku849]

Striker does need some additional speed so they can put up the mandatory 2 negates to survive a turn, but the direction I would have gone beyond that would have been better recursion and disruption to opposing recursion (shark cannon), since control decks also get to have good turn 2's these days.

[@TheAusar]

Honestly, yeah the control aspect of runick is "fine" I guess... the issue is the deck rip, and the fact that every single spell also has the option to generate a monster out of thin air. I think striker cards did a very good job with this, requiring your main monster zones to be empty, which of course leaves you susceptible to being floodgated, because fun.

[@Yumyai]

I feel him.

[@infern0soracle330]

a good control deck nowadays needs to be ablento play turn 0 to make sure combo decks dont make an unbreakable board (somewhat like labrynth i guess), but also dont combo on their own turn to immediately kill. the problem is, that nowadays, extra deck cards are way too generic and super easily enable otks. so you'd need restrictions like not being able to be used for extra deck plays the turn they're summoned

[@rinoportier556]

Another option is making a deck full of cards that heavily punish your opponent from comboing too much. The perfect example for this design is something like Ty-phon

[@RanDoomPuff]

My problem with something like runick is its a deck that loses the battle phase which means it loses the one main advantage decks have going second. They probably should have given the cards some bonus effects going second.

[@angel-memeroftheisles]

If runick fountain locked you into spells runick would be perfect.

[@dracoblizzard7944]

To make a functional "Control" deck in today's meta Konami would have to print a bunch of effects on cards that they just probably never will. In order to play into a combo board, cards would have to have effects like "this card cannot leave the field by card effects" or "this effect cannot be negated", which they basically never give out unless it's on some Egyptian God support or something. Imagine a card like Horus's Sarcophagus that had those effects, but also locked you out of the extra deck and Dark Ruler'd you (can't do damage) for a turn. From there it would give you access to a large amount of your engine which you could interact with your opponent with, until you gather enough resources to kill your opponent without needing to use your main card. That is the kind of effect needed to make a Control deck work without just having a billion floodgates or handtraps, but I doubt it will ever happen.

[@dankicks]

Can you have “control” decks in a game where so many cards, do so many things, from so many places, at so many moments?

[@popneppopnep4357]

Numerous control is treating me well.

[@Leonardo.ohime.i]

they had to give striker more quick play spells with interruption like effects not turn it into the billionth combo deck

[@mateusrp1994]

Dudes be like, I miss control decks. My brother in christ, you promote Runick Naturia.

[@Calebbeck]

I would love modern control decks

[@seadnamaccasarlaigh279]

There’s not a lot of good control decks because going second is nearly impossible with a control/trap deck. So for the most part, it’s mid range decks or it’s a control deck with a Combo or mid range engine shoved inside it. Like eldlich Invoked, Eldlich synchro, and the more recent Runick builds.

[@lucascerbasi4518]

I mean, Invoked Eldlich is definitely not fast enough to be considered mid range, so it is a control deck. If you sped it up with something like Runick Invoked Eldlich, then I'd call that mid range. I think they should make more control deck like Sky Striker, control decks that have in-engine going 2nd cards, kinda of like a control-aggro hybrid, they just need to make such cards have impactful effects (without stunning of course).

[@seadnamaccasarlaigh279]

@@lucascerbasi4518 I mean, I didn’t say Eldlich Invoked was a midrange deck, I said it was a control deck with a combo or midrange engine put in it (the halq/synchro engine being the combo one)

[@lucascerbasi4518]

@@seadnamaccasarlaigh279 oh srry, I missread that.

[@gabrielsalahi3656]

I’d like to see a new version of Palio that sends themselves back once they are detached from an XYZ This would give the deck just a little bit more to work with Would it be good? No c: would it be nice? Sure-

[@JayDubYGO]

I really wish control decks were still a thing I wanna find a way to make a Runick control build not a stun list but control

[@CocTheElf]

Topping IKEA Lab list plays 5 floodgates: ah yes midrange deck. Trap Lab plays 5-6 floodgates: ah yes stun deck

[@aaronfromlv1552]

the comments but lab... meanwhile the average lab player... "i will set set d barrier"

[@LS-qs9ju]

OCG Lab player is not even maining Floodgates (D Barrier/Rivalry/Gozen/Skill Drain) as it's shit against RACE and FK. And side deck D Barrier is normal on many deck, not just Lab. You won't call combo deck a stun deck because they side deck D Barrier right?

[@Shione_Starlight]

labrynth is a control deck imo but they did that by cheating out broken traps from your deck and put protection on all your boss monsters or unable to respond.

[@elionijames598]

Just imagine if amorphage had link monsters

[@raizen4597]

The thumbnail isnt very accurate for 2018...

[@cladiosanchez6865]

I love control decks, that aren't just stun with extra steps. I started playing modern with sky strikers in master duel after 15 years of not playing outside goat on GBA, and climbed to plat 1 by day 3 with it. Having a plan, learning the meta, and having answers for everything is my favorite. Since power creep is a thing i started playing lab since its the closet thing to a "control" deck I can play now, that has the grind game and staying power i like from control decks. I like the newer cards im seeing for sky strikers, and am hoping they get the azalia treatment and we get them in MD basicly on release, im alright with sky strkiers being bumped to mid-range control strategy. Im also liking that the new cards are forcing out a bunch of the non engine in the deck, and giving more tagets for engage, and hayate.

[@esrohm6460]

it really says something when labrynth a deck that can only summon 1 monster a turn wants to kill you turn 3. but i guess with how yugioh works the difference between a deck that stops or breaks what the opponent did/does in their first turn and then prevents them from ever again making a relevant play until they attacked with bumbling guy number 3 for the 900th time to kill them and decks being able to put out 8k through any board is the lack of bullying someone who already has lost ps.: not joking her what yugioh actually would need for control to exist would be about 40k lifepoints. if you do the math and get away from those stupid inflated numbers does yugioh currently have 4 lifepoint, a 5th of other card games. then control could exist as no deck can realistically beat that much lifepoint in a turn so a deck can be allowed to just partially break a board and play for getting control of the game turn 5, instead of having the need to absolute kill the opponent or die

[@Circ00mspice]

Do ramp and tempo decks exist in modern YGO? Nobody talks about these archetypes in the context of the modern format. Maybe the game got too fast for ramp strategies. Old school Lightsworn is the closest to ramp deck YGO I know.

[@F3XT]

I think for control deck to rise back a LOT of floodgates would need to go, then the design space is just free, control tools need to be entirely redesigned, but I think we're in a good path, imo the game seems to be going to a place where generic removal outside of the extra deck will be good again

[@choco699]

I tend to think naturia runick as more as a stun deck then a mid-range, seeing how they can put infinite negates on board for almost no cost

[@zephyrrrr4813]

Nat beast isn't enough of a floodgate which is a wild thing to say I know to really be a stun deck. An unfair card that should be probably banned yes, but it doesn't make naturia runick a stun deck

[@choco699]

@@zephyrrrr4813 you forgot about every other naturia card that is placed in a normal turn. Such as an infinite monster negate. An infinite trap negate. All set up on turn 1 if there is little interruption, even plays through an ash.

[@zephyrrrr4813]

@@choco699 I mean sunflower is 2 negates, they do have the s/t floodgates but they don't really get played that much. They're also on small easy to remove bodies. There's some strong naturia cards it's definitely not a stun deck when played as a runic deck with a good list tho

[@choco699]

Heavy disagree on the "don't get played much". I literally lose to them every single time I even view a naturia in peripheral vision. I would call it a stun purely because there is no feasble out to sunflower, beast, camellia, rosewhip with runick and just hoping they didn't draw a single one of their counter traps. And if you say they don't run counter traps, that's not true because otherwise 90% of my Dark ruler's would have resolved.

[@michaelsylvester8012]

Nouvelles is what a modern control deck should look like. It punishes monster heavy decks, and decks that don't put out negates/Interaction very early. However it struggles to OTK unless your opponent plays into it.

[@user-jk7vp7vn2k]

nouvellez? control? the deck that has no space for staples and instead relies entirely on its fragile combos to put up any kind of disruption? take your meds

[@manchovieclemmons2380]

@@user-jk7vp7vn2k where do you interrupt to stop their combo that prevents them from setting up at least 2-3 pieces of interruption? The problem isnt that their comboes are fragile, its the attack position requirement of the cards. That alone is what keeps the deck from being viable.

[@rorschach4502]

I play a nouvelles Drytron deck and it's honestly pretty insane lol.

[@alfian4653]

Nouvelle is a combo deck, not a control deck

[@michaelsylvester8012]

@user-jk7vp7vn2k I'm more referring to the fact that the interaction that it puts up controls what your opponent does, by punishing them for placing monsters in attack or targeting monsters. Yes it does a combo to set up like every yu gi oh deck but the actual game play of the end board is a controlling style

[@outsider8209]

I miss control, and the sad thing is that to get a more classic control deck you'd have to double the rounds in a game and not make it cause of floodgates which by this standard is impossible. They are so little drawbacks in combo compared to control in the terms of resources, cause while both decks can be handtrapped control decks just leave themselves open for a lot of removal. Now that removal like solemn judgement or even torrential tribute use to be game breaking but now it just feels like something as annoying as an ash then they combo off or land on a negate to just wittle down on your remaining resources. Though even if you go into the grind gamw modern combo also lost having good follow up, which is normal in most games but it lacks a lot in where I'd guess combo players turn 3 they may run out of a lot resources even uninterrupted which is insane to think by round 6 you can go through 30+ cards. I'm not seeing control coming back unless it's something like tear or just an unplayable mess with some stun in it

[@rafflesiaandfriends]

I consider build a board decks to be all or nothing, while control decks are normally mid range meaning they're more flexible about the speed at which they want to play and what turn they want to win by. I don't like the term combo because most decks have combos, i think grouping them as build a board (BAB), OTK, FTK, STK, Control, Stun, Burn, Mill and Jank (alt win cons) would be better

[@clouden79]

My idea to strengthen Sky Strikers for the modern format would be to invent buffed forms of their Link 1 monsters. For example, imagine "[Kagari - Unleashed] LINK-2 (1 FIRE Sky Striker link monster + 1 monster) When this card is special summoned: Target 2 Sky Striker cards in your GY; add them to your hand" OR something like "[Shizuku - Released] LINK-2 (1 WATER Sky Striker link monster + 1 monster) During the End Phase this card was summoned: Add 3 Sky Striker spells from your deck to your hand" Maybe this concept can be extended to other existing control decks that are struggling in the current format...

[@jasonl.7170]

Id prefer one good non target removal spell for one

[@SeraSmiles]

Honestly with how fast modern yugioh is the usual tcg terms dont really fit where they used to anymore but i don't think that's necessarily terrible. A grind game that goes 5 turns isn't worse than one that goes 10 as long as they're equally interesting

[@giangole]

sky striker is just too power crept, too weak to both kaiju and backrow removal, cant go first, super weak ceiling.

[@thorscape3879]

Is the way I see it the only way control can live is if stunned dies or is at least neutered. The way I would do this is by implementing speed dual's limit system to any card that would colloquially be called a floodgate The way I would do this is by implementing Speed Duel's limit system to any card that would colloquially be called a floodgate. By implementing this system it allows for the traditional banlist to exist alongside a stronger system to curb the power of cards with game-ending synergy. It doesn't have to be limited to floodgates either. Most mid-range decks cal already play in to boards and have follow-up so not even that is enough to give control a foothold in the modern metagame. Control needs to be able to play in to the board and immediately "take control" of the game when it starts playing. Control needs big assholes that don't go away. Things like BLS and Sorc in Chaos Control, Monolith during BA/Shaddol/Quli format, Master Peace, and Drident. If Konami created cards/archetypes that facilitated cards like these while also having HEAVY restrictions that prevent generic abuse control can come back. While not a control deck Swordsoul does this well by requiring a critical mass of Wyrms in your deck/hand to play the game, your usually Synchro locked, and if you extend you get wyrm locked.

[@rdmptn3828]

legit contemplating to start playing MTG so i can kind of play control/grindy games again

[@bl00by_]

I don't understand why konami isn't just printing support cards which boost the old control decks while keeping their playstyle. Like for striker just make better versions of the current spells. Like an upgraded afterburner which doesn't target and sends a monster to gy or a widow anchor which negates not only monsters but also spells/traps. Or give them a way to play spells turn 0 similar to lab with butler. There are so many ways to keep the control aspect while still making the deck strong.

[@GodzillaFreak]

Control decks aren't gonna outresource tearlament or centurion.

[@zephyrrrr4813]

I mean centurion is very out resourceable if they don't resolve calamity or if you just imperm the synchro

[@BlackBeartic229]

>Centurion Centurion is awful and a decent control deck would outresource it. Centurion lives or dies by Calamity. If it can't resolve it the entire hand means nothing

[@GodzillaFreak]

@@BlackBeartic229 How tf is a backrow deck planning to stop calamity exactly? The centurion grind game is unbeatable because they're just +1 turn the entire game yes.

[@BlackBeartic229]

@@GodzillaFreak Backrow decks are the only thing Calamity does nothing vs LOL. Ah yes lemme turn off monster effects vs a deck most likely to set 4 pass with 1 monster. Also their grind game is not "unbeatable", it's good if Legatia is up but if you deny that they have nothing. Y'all gotta realize having advantage doesn't mean much when your deck folds to your win con getting denied in anyway. Hence why people say it's carried by calamity

[@GodzillaFreak]

@@BlackBeartic229 Okay my version of centurion is a trap version with anguish pattern and apophis so I guess it's different for the handtrap version.

[@11wuzzup]

As the speed of the game increases. Control either has to become more combo reliant to keep up or impliment more toxic forms of control(stun) to stop faster strategies from playing. I love control decks. I am a HUGE paleo fan, loved Geist in masterduel, and gave striker a fair try, but true control decks are a dying breed. Even the best control decks have, on average, 3-4 solid points of interaction and 1-3 points of recursion. On average modern decks need to be interrupted 4-5 times and will have enough recursion or left over gas to do the while combo atleast 1 more time. So a control deck needs atleast 8-10+ interruptions over the course of 1.5-2 turns, and they just can't do that 90% of the time, especially when you take into account that the mid-range and combo decks have their own hand-traps, board breakers, and interruptions.

[@lukepetito471]

I have to agree with there hasn't been a control deck since altergiest. Which is a little sad as control deck are some of most skill intensive decks and you win matches via skill not if you get your combo off or not. Something that isn't really cover in this discussion is Maxx C, the OCG they slow there combo and mid-range deck with this card with makes control deck stronger over there. So for a control deck to be top teir it has to busted in the OCG. I have quit Yugioh because of this and want to return to the game but without a control deck in the format I just don't see myself doing so. Hopely, they make competive control deck soon.

[@willywilson1134]

Runick is a great wxample of a failed control aechetype. Its a great deck but it just doesnt work without floodgates or a good supporting engine like fur hire. I think control decks need better card economy interactions to be worthwhile in the modern era, as striker using widow anchor or runicks even with banishing off the top of your opponents deck just dont work when cards like fenrir / tearlaments exist which have multiple points of interaction

[@agrocreepers]

can we talk about banning acesscode talker like the generic otk potential is a lil sus

[@liviousgameplay1755]

TIL: I love control. I used to say I like some control decks but not others, but I realized watching this vid that I draw the line between based a cringe between what I now know is stun and control.

[@giantstrawman543]

The common Yugioh definition of control is completely wrong, and that's the main issue with control in Yugioh. Yugioh players think that a control deck "controls the opponent." That is not remotely true. Control decks are not defined by controlling the opponent. Control decks are defined by controlling the BATTLE PHASE. If you look at every single control deck printed in the last few years, they ALL have some awful, janky battle phase effect. Sky Striker prevents things from attacking and attacks directly. Eldlich gets over 3000 and summons trap monsters to body block. Majespecter FORCES you to go to battle phase to deal with them (a clever inversion). Altergeist has cards that negate attacks, attack directly, or prevent your cards from being attacked. UMI CONTROL has Doom Kraken! Invoked has Aleister's stupid Kalut effect, Dogmatika can't be destroyed by battle with ED monsters and Fleurdelis pumps attack. Icejade Aegerine randomly does stuff when it gets attacked. Melffies have protection from being attacked. Look at all the battle effects in S-Force. Adventure was blatantly designed to be a control deck, and you can tell because it's full of cards that say "attack points." And why? Because the battle phase is how you die. If you don't DIE, then your engine can go off again next turn. You can't grind if you get OTKd. You grind because even after your opponent goes through everything, you're still alive. You grind because your opponent only has ONE Shuraig activation per turn, and if you prevent them from doing that ONE thing, your opponent has no out to Serziel. You win because at the end of the day, nothing beats Appliancer Propellion in battle, and you make it to next turn. And next turn, you do everything all over again. You want grind? At the end of the day, when you've run out of cards in deck, when you have no more resources left, the battle phase is the one thing you can always count on. And you'd be amazed how many combo/midrange decks are relying on it. Do you realize they had to print RUNICK to make it worthwhile to give up the battle phase? The deck with eight instant fusions that search a non-OPT draw 3 field spell. Josh was spot on when he said that they need to print control decks that do well going second. That's 100% true. Because the essence of control isn't actually traps, but the battle phase. And you don't get a battle phase going first. So many people have gotten confused and think that because a deck uses trap cards, that somehow makes it a control deck. And since traps are only useful going first, control decks must be going-first decks. That couldn't be farther from the truth. We all know that setting 5 is an FTK. Striker is one of the quintessential control decks of Yugioh, with zero traps and a bunch of Normal spells. So, so many grindy control decks are designed with the tools to go second. And because going second is bad, they're bad. But worst of all is that combo and midrange decks always seem to get control's toys. Why do decks like Tearlaments get attack boosts, in-engine hand traps, floating effects, plentiful chain blocking, and infinite grind game through shuffle effects? Those should logically all be control elements, designed to help them against the menaces of infinite negate combo boards and main phase removal effects. Was Tearlaments intended to be a control deck? Maybe the less we think about it, the better.

[@Dyleniz]

Every deck is a combo deck hold my fossildyna and moon mirror shield

[@aarondelgado6569]

Is lab not considered control

[@Xero-rr2ol]

lab pure no floodgates. yes. a competitive lab is stun floodgate turbo

[@yy5173]

⁠@@Xero-rr2olThe most recent topping lab decks dont play floodgates outside of sth like barrier, erad Which are typically sided and not really used as a floodgate more like a instant win condition So idk hard to classify it

[@Honest_Mids_Masher]

​​@@yy5173I mean Barrier and EEV are the floodgates that are used especially since Lovely can just reset it from grave and reuse it.

[@richardnorton6389]

Would you consider ninja a control deck?

[@xXCrowDarknessXx]

Try dogmatika going second. consistent as hell amazing in boardbreaking because you don't need much engine. So you have a lot space for handtraps and boardbreaker a single thrust gives you 1 of 2 playable towers. Best deck for ultimate slayer also because you nearly only use cards with trigger effects in gy. It's basically next to labrynth the best control deck currently

[@AaronMcInnes]

So wait, what are the definitions if the lines are so blurred b/w Control and midrange?

[@joshprice4855]

Sorry for the old comment, but I have seen it like this Control usually grinds out to the end. They wait until their opponent has more or less expended all their resources before executing the wincon and closing the game. Midrange uses control elements to keep faster decks at bay until they can set up but usually are faster than control decks Hence the term mid range

[@abendsonnewarriorcats9474]

What about Runick Spright Decks?

[@jakeehwilliams8820]

This game is so fast that it ends in turn 1. Yet plays so slow because one person or the other is comboing for 15min or a person turn takes

[@prestonbeaulieu4379]

Is furniture lab not a control deck?

[@spreadlove8946]

I want a ronintoadin replacement for paleos, it would be so much more playable if u could get out a toadally turn 1

[@BratShemi]

Bring back circular to 3

[@Altigue]

Labrynth and Eldlich make for good control decks, they have the right base for them, unfortunately they, too, work too well with floodgates and stun cards. The best way to make control decks now would be to severely tone down combo decks Also, we need good straight AGGRO decks. Dinos and shit Labrynth furniture is more control imo. Having an infinite resource loop that allows you to easily outgrind the midrange or combo decks. It doesn’t “combo” so much as gather resources. Midrange can grind for a little bit but can also combo and run through some gas to make a power board. Combo has a lot of gas but not much grind if any at all. Stun is… well, stun. Shutdown your opponent and beat em in the face with whatever your monster is. Aggro is like… not even a thing for the most part anymore. The strong going second decks like dinos were back in the day. Go second, handtrap your opponent, break whatever board they do make, and if they deal with that, UCT just eats the remaining board alive pretty much, and will often plus you as well.

[@antonbrown17]

My issue with every deck becoming either a combo deck or a midtange deck with a bunch of combos to know is rhat trying go pick upa deck these days us so much work. No real conteol decks means if i want to play a knew deck, i have a spend a few hours getting familiar with the combos because thats the barrier for entry with playing any deck at all. At least with trying a knew control deck you get the gist easier but bot do i hate spending 4 hours kearning a combo deck's combos just to realize i dont even want to play it going forward

[@RepTheoAndFriends]

Isn't labyrinth a control deck?

[@frankunodostres473]

I can't take sky strikers seriously since they were the only group who got upset when mystic mine got banned >.>

[@Alex-Omega]

And the Sky Striker fans are way too much into Ray

[@trippersigs2248]

@@Alex-Omega I dont even think thats true. Its just a very lazy joke that people like to make because for some reason Yugioh players love to call each other pedophiles.

[@F3XT]

but to be fair striker was the least opressive deck to use mystic mine, like it just works so well with the deck

[@satorumikami7721]

@@trippersigs2248shut up. Kitt solo’s.

[@leonvillarica9965]

Nah, real striker fans rejoiced that they didn't have to play that boring shit anymore

[@JakeTheJay]

I never thought I would see someone point out how today's "control" decks are not control anymore and are stun deck. I am glad some people are finally calling these decks what they actually are. Stun decks. Control has always been resource denial and grind game, but today's "control" is sitting behind floodgates and stalling out the opponent as you poke them slowly

[@YGOnsj3400]

Yes of couse because i find grind games Skillfull and interactive

[@Zeroyue622]

I felt like Konami makes control decks too "fair". Felt like they need to remove floodgates from the game then make the control tools stronger.