How Dragon Rulers BROKE Yu-Gi-Oh!

[@JanjoZone]

Which Dragon Ruler was your favorite? Hear my extended thoughts on my Patreon! > www.patreon.com/Janjo

[@stevenc2937]

@@JanjoZone blaster is still my fav card

[@ygofrom0]

Mt favorite has gotta also be Blaster

[@RaineBans]

i played dragon rulers when they were meta and it was my first competitive deck but i also played redox in traptrix in their early wave and its still an extra vernusylph in earth focused decks

[@plantseason290]

My issue with dragon rulers at the time was that they felt impossible to punish due to their recycling. You break their dracosack board, they just summon big eye next turn

[@JanjoZone]

@@plantseason290 Excellent point!

[@NecromancyForKids]

This was around the time that I quit modern Yu-Gi-Oh!. Lots of people were complaining that Dragon Rulers were too pervasive and Konami was doing very little about it (likely because they were selling tins of them). When they started to weaken them, they just printed new cards to make them better again. Repeatedly. Then they made Sixth Sense legal in the TCG, and it became obvious that they were making decisions for the game purely in the name of money and in no way for the experience of the players. It is how I came to understand that games will suffer for being products.

[@JanjoZone]

At the very least they hit Sixth Sense right away

[@alonsoarana5307]

Sounds like a repeated pattern, hit the things that enable them to be broken and not the problems themselves, looking at everything around Snake Eyes in a modern context

[@stevenc2937]

I know how much people hate them, but they are special for me. I built this deck when I was teen. I had no money to buy the craco and big eye, but I made them work with sincros and skill drain. I was so fascinated to the way I could play that they became my favorites cards. They will always be deep in heart.

[@JanjoZone]

@@stevenc2937 it's definitely a vibe!

[@aliesterus1.023]

7:48 If I recall correctly, it's because Stratos was involved in an FTK during this era. They also banned or limited a ton of other cards involved in that deck.

[@ygofrom0]

I think it's cool that the Dragon Rulers used all the Non-Chaos attributes in one deck. Gave those attributes a chance to shine!

[@JanjoZone]

@@ygofrom0 wait for the light & dark rulers lol

[@PlaguevonKarma]

I think a really important part of the Spellbook vs Dragon Ruler matchup was Blaster's discard effect. Spellbook rarely put up more than one floodgate, and Blaster can just...pop them. Even preboard, Rulers had plenty of ways out and it'd just blow the Spellbooks away.

[@JanjoZone]

Good point!

[@SalTah-q5l]

Ah yes Dragon rulers. When my local rite aid was still selling yugioh cards, there were a couple of Galactic Overlords packs in this tiny shelf and I bought both of them. Got home and to my shock I pulled Big Eye. I was sooo freakin happy I pulled one as I was just starting to collect the number cards. This was over $100 card back then. I miss my rite aid... At least I still have the card.

[@professortrickroom3777]

One more video and we'll be entering the Arc-V era, which defined Modern Yu-Gi-Oh as we know it (according to other videos I watched).

[@JanjoZone]

Two more History videos I believe!

[@GG_Nowa]

It's two. Next will be HAT then the one after will be about the first dragons set and the surprise swing of sylvans at NAWCQ

[@professortrickroom3777]

Guess there will be enough to talk about to warrant two videos for late Zexal.

[@ashemabahumat4173]

"Cow-Curry Gear-Gee-uh"

[@ramihrduswi1646]

Another certified Janjo classic

[@JanjoZone]

Always

[@Zanji1234]

xD Michael Grüner in two pictures just show how big this guy was back then

[@JanjoZone]

Indeed!

[@LeyMurphyYGO]

Dragon Ruler were pretty much the Tearlaments of 2013. Even with 12+ cards that are restricted because of the archetype, it still remained a viable Tier 1.5 deck after the December banlist. xD

[@JanjoZone]

Certainly up there!

[@N12015]

More like the Kashtira of 2013. They were NEVER tier 0, but boy were they opressive.

[@RaineBans]

i still think people shoulda tried synchro varients while all dragon rulers were at 3 becus the synchro pool were much better than rank 7 pool. yh dracossack and big eye were good but that was really it. besides big eye into big eye caused people to not make it unless they had lethal so it was mostly just dracossack

[@JanjoZone]

@@RaineBans We'll see synchro variants soon enough! Not much, but one or two did pop up in early 2014

[@GG_Nowa]

Honesty i dont think this deck would be as hated if big eye and draco didn't cost $100s a copy Especially as most the core was not even the half the cost of dracosack

[@JanjoZone]

@@GG_Nowa Reasonable point

[@oscardaone]

Yeah I had my harpies at that time. All I did was add anti meta in my card collection. My friend had Frog Monarchs and he was doing pretty good as well. Rulers meant nothing to us. I don’t know about everyone else though. Although I am disappointed that Harpie player forgot his Pet phantasmal dragon during that YCS event during that format. 😣 He could have won that game vs Rulers. I will say it was a lot of Rank 7 I saw that year. 😅

[@musvijajuzagrilariocara8583]

I might give this format a shot, it looks like it could be a blast.

[@JanjoZone]

A blaster you could say 😎

[@dylanogg347]

Legend has it that Yu-Gi-Oh! Is still paying for therapy bills to this day...

[@Swordyoshi]

This is one of my favorite eras in Yugioh. Still have most of my deck I made from that time, include the side deck. Just some of the extra deck is what I miss for that deck at this time.

[@jaredwilliams1031]

You know what? It's been a good day. Time to unwind with some good ol' Yu Gi Oh-related content. Time to J-J, J-J, J-j-j-j-janjo!

[@JanjoZone]

You know it!

[@Alderoth]

Dragons came out and they immediately limited d fissure and macro lmao

[@traplover6357]

Looking back with hindsight cant believe 2 Dracosacks were seen as oppressive 😂. Then again, I sat on Ophion during this era

[@JanjoZone]

Ophion is his own deal haha

[@ashemabahumat4173]

Ophion/Pleaides pass was my favorite thing to do

[@kuyagoldlink7563]

Love yugioh history!

[@JanjoZone]

@@kuyagoldlink7563 no, you!

[@kuyagoldlink7563]

@@JanjoZone me? 👀

[@thanasos3011]

What a cancerous format! I remember playing back in the day and no matter how much I tested, the rulers couldn't get defeated. Konami's game design with rank 7s was disappointing. Also prephecy was so strong in locals. There was no way of winning against them, except if you were playing the rulers.

[@JanjoZone]

It's definitely hard to beat them!

[@SuiteLifeofDioBrando]

Dragon rulers going into big eye was crazy

[@JanjoZone]

@@SuiteLifeofDioBrando 100%!

[@frankwest5388]

I think people vastly overestimate how good prophecy really was at the time. If look at it objectively, the deck had very few actually good cards besides judgment to put up a floodgate. Which is why the deck immediately died once they lost judgement. Without it, they were little more than a decent draw engine with a ton of names that you were forced to run, despite doing very little.

[@JanjoZone]

Goes to show how strong SOJ is!

[@frankwest5388]

@@JanjoZone true. But people always hailed the strategy as “the second best deck in Ruler format”, when it really wasn’t that strong, even back then. It just had a decent ruler matchup with the potential to high roll. Similar to how Evilswarm was seen as really good at the time but now is agreed to be nearly unplayable even back then. On the other hand, it also just reinforces just how good D-Rulers truly were back then, since the two other heavily played decks, were only competitive due to having one good card that kinda beat them on their own. It does make me wonder how a Ruler era format would have looked like, if the rulers were never released. I’d even go as far as to say that neither prophecy nor Evilswarm would be considered tiered in that alternate history.

[@Pleia_Ds]

Gear gee uh

[@N12015]

I've said before, but boy is Zexal a quality rollercoster. From every Meadowlands and Vegas format, there's a Dragon Ruler and Dino Rabbit format (No, people still do not like them) with them. And I'm sure they were dominant for over 6 months making the experience even worse. Still kinda overrated but my lord were they not good for the game. Fun fact: Chaos decks in 2004 were around THE SAME LEVEL as full power Dragon rulers, and i'm seeing lots of similarities, from their monster steal (Snatch vs big eye), to their efficient removal (Raigeki and Thousand eyes vs Draccosack), to special summon big beaters from banish (Chaos monsters vs Dragon rulers), to sacky busted draw cards (Pot of greed Reguvenation), to oddly good recycling and search (the 4 Baby rulers and ravine vs MoF, Sangan, Witch and revival cards) to obnoxious lockdowns (Yata-garasu and Royal opression vs Vanity's emphtiness), is just that one has hand rips, while the other more boss monsters. I would say around 2016 is when we surpassed Chaos and Dragon rulers with Metalfoes and True Draco. Meanwhile, Spellbook is just as bad in terms of playpatterns, with a sacky judgment, an easy lockdown and just way too much counterplay to anything you want to do because it's one of the first decks who can dedicate tons of its deck to nonengine. I swear they hired the same guys that made the chaos monsters when printing the 2013 cards because they're just busted. Is when many consider the Yu-Gi-Oh they loved died, because the game NEVER recovered from this increase of speed, and if anything decks like snake-eyes just make Dragon rulers and Spellbooks look fair and balanced even though they weren't 11 years ago. PS: I forgot to mention how AWFUL the first TCG banlist was, forgetting casual players entirely. Also, why banning avarice? Isn't the card kinda hard countered by D.D. Crow? Banning solemn judgment is also questionable, and banning heavy storm is asking for a sluggish meta full of backro, but I guess people here just despise poors and powerplays.

[@GG_Nowa]

Avarice was fair a ban. That card was always used for dogshit. Wind up used it to boost the shot at them hand loop for 5. Earlier in the same year mermail used it to recycle dragoons. Heavy storm has been a card everyone hated for years because It killed the ability to play backrow heavy decks and we headed into 2014 with HAT that was the the game. Plus most staple backrow was limited too so you don't need mass hate to deal with it. Judgement was banned because backrow omni with no real cost especially later in thr game was terrible. And most of its roles now where relegated to warning and wiretap so you didn't have one size fits all

[@N12015]

@@GG_Nowa Aren't backro-heavy decks kinda despised by the community, Artifact the ultimate counter of heavy storm which was not abusable by themselves btw, Wind-ups killed before Avarice's ban, or Mermails deserving a nerf anyways? Also, banning judgment, while logical at first, ended up leaving a big gap in spell interaction outside very specific cards like Naturia beast or Constellar Omega, which was a problem because Dark Hole and mind control are legal and because that lack of interaction makes games more prone to solitaire... which is exactly what happened in MR3, with 3 tier 0 decks included (PePe, Necroz, Zoodiac). What I'm saying is that in good part due to this banlist we entered the pendulum era without clear pendulum counters, which feels like an overreaction from Konami USA, a serious lack of foresight, and a lack of care for casuals. Considering they did worse than nothing with the Snake-eyes problem in the TCG, I cannot say I'm surprised AT ALL, nor would I say they learned their lesson.