Joshua Schmidt Reacts to The Pendulum Problem

[@TheDjdeath45]

Ritual pend deck plz Konami, all of the scales could be the ritual spells, when used as a material for a ritual summon, could recycle themselves, search another scale, search a trap or something, some of the scales could be quick play ritual summons for the opponents turn.

[@Suplup]

Please! Pendulumgraph dragon is one of my favorite cards from recent sets just because it's a pend ritual

[@robertbauerle5592]

Yes!

[@otterfire4712]

Ritual Pendulum would be peak for Plunder Patroll as the WIND Plunder Patrollship, it'd have a pendulum effect to put itself into the extra deck for some search effect and could then be brought out by either Ritual Summon or Plunder Patroll Effect from Extra Deck or hand.

[@alchemistarcher02]

I think they could lean towards this with the next wave of Nouvellez support

[@darora4406]

It's a really interesting idea, even to me who's a bit of a pendulum hater

[@densai89]

Placed 2 Pendulum Scales. Pendulum summon 5 from hand. Opponent activates Solemn Strike. 💀

[@agamerjourney9146]

Depending on scales Solfachord is protected from solemn strike.

[@justinpennington6680]

Just flips anti-spell fragrance as soon as a pend card is searched.

[@OlgaZuccati]

@@justinpennington6680 just open your recently limited card

[@joanaguayoplanell4912]

Fine by me, because I'm using the ORIGINAL pendulum deck wich also happens to be by far the best one. I don't need link arrows, scales or any other fancy shit. Just put my Crystal Beasts in position and call good old Ruby. And with Golden Rule I can do both at the same time. You use Strike? I'm only loosing the Ruby because I "pendulum summon" with an activated effect wich means the summon itself cannot be negated, all you can do is negate the activated effect beforehand. In fact, I won't even loose anythinng, she'll go to the backrow. Wich will result in either Aegis triggering, Awakening being used, or worse even, completely fill my backrow and allow me to activate the fifth effect of my field spell, wich in all cases will result in Ruby being resummoned to the field and triggering another "pendulum summon" immediately.

[@joanaguayoplanell4912]

@@justinpennington6680 Okay normal Pegasus banish Zenith overlay into Chidori, stack it then overlay into zeus. Have fun drawing Anti Spell next turn with an empty board and staring down at least 4 negates.

[@tasa2427]

D/D/D is a pendulum deck that has both pendulum monsters and regular effect monsters. Also has combo lines where the link monster can place both pendulum scales from deck. I think having an extra deck boss monster that can place scales for effect is probably the next step for pendulums.

[@milesandrews6711]

Nah powercreep gonna make them place scales from deck for cost

[@ginjusmingo]

@@milesandrews6711 Underrated comment 🤣

[@Gilgamesh-em6ru]

the thing is that D/D/D is a very self contained deck. you can't splash D/D/D pendulum monsters into any deck and make it work. that's part of the problem. the only time I've seen a pendulum archetype been splashed into a non pedulum deck was Infernoble. Igknight/ new dracoslayers. isolde is able to search the igknight low scale and beam out Ignis from the deck to make Beyond to search another Ignis to pendulum summon, then search for a fire warrior and search for any field spell with Majesty Pegeasus and that can be done under the protection of Nib with Gearfried on the field or if you didn't get a way to gearfried you can just extend past nib with the pendulum. since you're able to make Apo before you use the igknight effect to search.

[@ghiffaribara2949]

@@Gilgamesh-em6ru Honestly as a D/D player, i would prefer to keep D/D contained but that's just because of my pure selfish reason to keep D/D unique. Yeah you can splash some of their extra deck monster like Kali Yuga and Darius but generally not a lot. I hope Konami prints a better support card for them

[@Gilgamesh-em6ru]

@@ghiffaribara2949 that's fine but then you aren't listening to the point Joshua was trying to make. why does almost all pendulum archetypes not work that well with non pendulum decks. like I said the only one that does it somewhat well is Infernoble but even then they don't pendulum summon more than just ignis most of the time.

[@Luminousplayer]

i think Konami is more likely to go batshit crazy and print "you can pend summon from deck" rather than make a balanced pendulum archetype

[@DrDrao]

I can't even imagine how busted that would be.

[@foolsg0ld212]

How about a more "balanced" mechanic? ACCEL PEND BABY

[@SDREHXC]

Next master rule be like “you can pend summon on both players turns”.

[@foolsg0ld212]

Next Master Rule: Pend summon from banish face down.

[@mrbubbles6468]

They’ve made loads of balanced Pend decks. You only really ever hear about the ones that break the game.

[@perez6873]

After the new support, abyss actor became such a fun deck

[@Kintaku]

Yeah I think it fits the role of “balanced mid range control pendulum deck.” To be fair if you don’t go full combo, your control strategy can be somewhat limited but it’s my favorite pend deck.

[@JWHSHK]

I love how towards the end people in chat were saying "Blackwings don't make Baronne" , and I'm sitting thinking blackwings can make Baronne but can not do it every time. But what they can make is DDD KKY almost every time which is worse.

[@UncleJrueForTue]

Best Blackwing endboard I can think of is Borrel Savage(Raidrapto link equipped), Hot Red, Grapha, Black Winged Assault, Black Feather Whirlwind, Sharnga in grave, and a counter trap.

[@babrad]

Blackwings can't make Kali Yuga. Wise Strix is just another busted link 2 waiting for abuse (iirc Link Vrain pack?) while Launch should have been kept banned because it breaks card design (like Sanctifire and Expulsion) and PK got a much better archetype-locked RUM as a replacement.

[@davidjimenez3822]

@@UncleJrueForTue by grapha you mean regular grapha or fusion grapha? cuz afaik neither really fit into blackwings

[@UncleJrueForTue]

@@davidjimenez3822 Fusion Grapha. It's made via fusing Muddy Mudragon and any monster on your board(mainly Wise Strix so you have a target for Borrel Savage to equip). It's all off the same opening of Simoon + a single Blackwing too.

[@UncleJrueForTue]

@@davidjimenez3822 Another route you can go is using Accel Synchron(send assault synchron) or Shamisen Sorrowcat to make Calamity using Oroshi and Black-Winged Dragon. Alternatively, you can just use Accel to summon Crimson Dragon then target a Onimaru to summon Calamity. I wouldn't reccommend Cold Waving someone's turn away as it shouldn't continue be a design space in yugioh, but you know how it is.

[@A11sopp]

14:00 I love Archfiend Eccentrick. I remember using it with Armageddon Knight and Archfiend Heiress as a searchable high scale that could also be MST in around 2016.

[@residentgrey]

Odd Eyes Pendulum Dragon. That is better. You can search for either side.

[@residentgrey]

I have both in most of my decks

[@Lorens4444]

I like that I can activate Falling Down while she is on the field. XD

[@brankoaime]

Generic extra deck monster are a problem. SP Little night is out for one week and is in every OCG deck ever

[@digitalstatictv]

I loved Endymion on MD for a while, but just being yet another Access code combo deck made it feel like Mathmech with extra steps

[@empireyouth5791]

I won hundred percent agree one of the most annoying things when watching people review newly released decks and the end of monsters is Them going “ why should we make this archetypes Kapstone if Appaloosa/bearing/ Utopic future dragon is better and they can make it” And as much as I hate Konami I’m always screaming “ what the hell are they supposed to do make a monster that negates twice per turn” Now I understand a part of this is literally just power creep applying to the generic options of cards just like it applies to everything else. But and ends up feeling like Xeno lock decks or decks trying to approach a game from an interesting angle gets the short end of this a lot as generic extra dick cards are not only powerful but accessible any time if you can make it

[@TaikunZ]

Absolutely true. This is the identity of Pendulums, just be another Accesscode deck.

[@brankoaime]

@@empireyouth5791 Yes to all of this. I think Konami sees this problem and is trying to solve it, I dont know if is going well but they are trying... I mean, a classic xeno block is not the solution but some restrictions in recent cards are interesting ways to solve some problems, like runicks blocking the EMZ if you want to keep summoning and eating a battle face or the adventure engine saying "no more normal alister" (Im joking of course), the point is, what can the cards do and dont allow you to do after to keep things interesting and fresh? I think things like SP little night are not the way to go

[@nbonasoro]

Majespectors was a really fun pendulum deck. The monsters get advantage from searches.

[@amethonys2798]

35:50 the fact Barrone could outright lose one of either the pop or the tag out and still be an extra deck staple in any deci that could conceivably make it shows how absolutely insane that card is.

[@HIMMBelljuvo]

I didn't like Pendulums until I tried Endymion, and then they became my third favourite mechanic next to Fusion and Link summoning

[@residentgrey]

The meta involving all of that is hella curious.

[@zestyflamingo]

I’ve actually really enjoyed what Konami has been experimenting with in the pendulum design space. The way you can use the Amazoness pendulums as fusion material and then they set themselves in the scales as atk steroids is cool and the plunder patrol ship come to mind as interesting uses of pendulums without being all in on a pendulum archetype

[@johnnyhall9154]

Vaylantz is really cool, but either you lock the opponent out or do nothing

[@nigamnation]

D/d/d is another good example of a deck that uses pendulum summoning well but doesn't center around it

[@lemonlees9606]

I couldn't agree more, Konami in general (especially with recent deck build sets) seem to be more involved in taking a mechanic and giving it unique play (Vaylantz, Purrely, Mikanko, Solfachord, and of course the upcoming Valmonica) It's one of my favourite things about current yugioh: the willingness to explore different playstyles

[@YukiFubuki.]

giving pends something to be instead of just setting up on the pends scales is something many other archetypes or just summoning mechanics can benefit off of like lunalight’s pends help the deck out so much in its fusion strat despite almost never actually pend summoning with them and even the new predaplants pend is an example of this since they allows your predaplants pends to be used as fusion mats as if they were on the field which is integral to some of their fusion, spread predacounters and function as a fusion spell just like 1 of the lunalight pends too pends has huge potential in its design space that is just held back by the pend soup strat

[@Ragnarok540]

Same with the latest predaplant pendulums, even if you don't pendulum summon in that deck the scale effects are really good, and you can even pendulum summon Psy frame driver if you need to.

[@fatcat2015]

We need Master Rule 6 to add the middle pendulum scale

[@Lobster44]

A way I'd like to see them save pendulum would be to give them scale effects that actually helped going second, giving the monsters removal spells or something that let them function in a similar way to runicks, where you get the removal/interrupt or the body, but ideally have a worthwhile lock to prevent the standard apo + baronne negate boards pend is prone to allowing

[@Groxworld1]

Pend Mags kind of have this with cards like Purple Poison, and Endymion basically can be like a bunch of Purple Poisons depending on how many Spell Counters you have I like how much amazing Going Second tool Pends have honestly with cards like Ignister Prominence, the Supreme Kings, Odd-Eyes Overlord, Odd-Eyes XYZ Rebellion I honestly think that the best way to stop Pends from making insane negate boards is to essentially give them a bunch of different and hard to interact tools (cards like Time Pendgraph are good examples)

[@bergkatze3186]

Abyss actor comic relief

[@asafesseidonsapphire]

​@@Groxworld1Honestly Pendulum Magicians are a really flexible deck that is mostly limited by extra deck space, like you can literally summon Psychic End Punisher with 1 card in Pendulum Magicians, that being Harmonizing special summon Xiansheng synchro into Psychic End Punisher, like the can easily access synchro 6-11, rank 4 and 7, a reasonable number of Archetypal and generic dragon Fusions, generic high link arrows links, easily because of the amount of material you get on board with a lot of interaction, and you can have this with a counter search floodgate(Z-Arc Pendulum scale effect destroys every card your opponent adds to the hand, it's used with Artifact Durendal to handloop in some combos) and an searchable one-sided Mystic Mine Performapal Five-Rainbow Magician, which is scale 12. So like the deck has power and consistency it's just that we often only use the options that tend to be live most of the time. Like the deck can "easily" make Crystal Wing, Black Rose Dragon, Ruddy Rose Dragon, both Trishulas( though the original is harder to make), Quariongandrax and others.

[@glover683]

I wish we had gotton more pends designed like eccentrick for sure

[@amethonys2798]

The issue with decks like Qli/Yosenju who were "midrange" pend decks is they got shafted even harder by MR4 and MR5 than the combo decks because losing 2 s/t card zones in a trap deck makes them virtually unplayable and no amount of link support is going to fix that. Qli is even WORSE off in that regard since they also have an equip spell they liked to have around leaving them with a whopping 2 s/t zones for interruptions.

[@otterfire4712]

I think different right and left scales would have been fine if it was a gimmick for an archetype and there were some mechanics around it like having different effects based on the side they're on, like being a revive effect on the left side and a search effect on the right side. Though I doubt TCG Konami would be able to handle formatting the effect text for such an endeavor.

[@amethonys2798]

It wouldn't be hard and they have even formatted effects similar. Ghost Bird of Bewitchment has effects depending on what monster zone it is in. Granted the card is absolutely terrible, but formatting a pend effect with Left: X Right: Y Is definitely possible and would more be limited by textbox space than anything else (although they've been good at cramming).

[@calich33sehead]

I was so excited for Solfachord when Ancient Guardians came out. Little did I know how fast Yugioh had gotten.

[@Protect_all_ljf3forms]

Solfachord got me back into the game

[@calich33sehead]

@@Protect_all_ljf3forms Diviner must have been a blessing and a curse at the time.

[@agamerjourney9146]

@@calich33sehead Solfachord can go fast. Main issue lack of other boss monster in the deck. From what seen so far slowly added extra deck monsters to Solfachord.

[@Lorens4444]

Their only issue is MR4 restriction. If only you could just pend summon 2 from the Extra Deck without relying on links. Acord is 2+ notes played at the same time. XD

[@ChaoticSynergist]

tbh pendulums would be cool if they did away with the pendulum zone altogether, letting you scale from anywhere in the S/T zones. it would also be cool for a deck design idea, pendulum effects where just the archetypal spells such as a rota or removal that send themselves to GY after resolution.

[@yuseifudo6075]

Pendulum is my favorite summoning mechanics. I can't believe endymions were my introduction to Yu-Gi-Oh

[@mrbubbles6468]

Just do to Barone what they did to Goyo. Make it’s material more in line with the anime deck it’s made for. Stops being an issue overnight.

[@chrisburns9898]

Every since they banned electrumite, the deck hasn’t been able to keep up and been irrelevant. When it was banned, pendulum was actually kinda healthy. It was like the 6th best deck at the time, but still did cool stuff. Lowkey miss those days

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

"The deck" Sort of the problem there. You are shrinking an entire mechanic down to a single goodstuffs pile. Even Cyberse has been able to retain more identity.

[@banop7794]

That’s exactly the problem. Pendulum is a mechanic not an archetype. Pendulum good stuff is a potential problem if the wrong cards are ever printed.

[@TheRoseReaper]

​@@banop7794 by that logic dragonlink is also a genuine problem. Which wouldn't be wrong.

[@Lorens4444]

​@@haruhirogrimgar6047We have goodstuff piles for fusions, rituals, dragons, zombies, Chaos, warriors, and so on. Each one of them has it's own unique support cards and ways to summon monsters, not to mention the generic staples. And when was the last time that summoning 3+ monsters and recursion were considered broken in this game? You could argue that pendulums were ahead of the time back then, but now? Nah, either bring Electrumite back, or change the MR to let us pend summon up to 2 monsters from the Extra Deck with no connection to links in any way.

[@heulg.darian2536]

I think pendulum cards like the ones from counter fairies would be the solution to this. Cards that work stand alone, both as monsters and spells and simply give you a special from the hand if they get both. They don't need to be searchers and extenders on pop, on summon, as materials for said cards. It's practically the same issue control has in the game where most generic ED cards aren't control tools such as defense or tempo control or recovery but instead they are extenders and starters which are useless for their playstyle. They can definitely make cards that are good value for low cost, cards like azaleya or muckraker or that new I:P target. Not everything needs to have extenders for link 4 climbs.

[@flameblade9892]

30:04 Symphonic warriors is a perfect example of an archetype that uses both scale and summon effects. All of the archetype's pendulum monsters make use of each monster and scale effects. The same can be said about some dracoslayers like dinomight powerload. Both required 2 cards to trigger all of their effects and so were not relevant, so they tried to release new cards that could activate both monster and scale effects with 1 card, aka Shinome the vaylantz, although they locked you into the extra deck. When that deck wasn't relevant, that was when they released wakaushi and Monk big benkei, with an even lighter restriction of requiring no spells/traps in grave. It's not that Konami doesn't design cards that use both monster and scale effects, it's that if they did it would be hard to balance.

[@residentgrey]

do you mean Dinomist???

[@johnnyhall9154]

Would be cool if they had like a psy-frame type pend deck that allowed for summons like gamma and driver in response to your opponent

[@emanuelstornello8009]

That could turn really toxic really quickly

[@TheRoseReaper]

​@@emanuelstornello8009they can't do anything on their own anyway so what's the harm?

[@Hanvri]

I will say that the new Z-Arc support might just be what Pendulum needs as a Archetype to complete it since it fixes a lot of the problems that they currently have and almost feels like you can play a true pendulum magicians/odd eyes deck, it also seems that it will almost incentives peiple to play less generic extra deck monsters and use more of their own like the supreme king dragons, Z-Arc, and Odd-eyes which sounds cool to me but there will still be people playing things like Barrone and Appa but that's just Yu-Gi-Oh as it is nowadays. And lastly the new Spell Cards and Traps for them seem to be able to help a little with Pendulums issues of going second. I do hope the support comes to master duel soon so i can tinker with a Z-Arc deck

[@turtle-bot3049]

It feels to me that an archetype like runic should have been a pendulum archetype, but because of 'Pendulum' konami didn't want to spend time balancing it so they just made it a bunch of spells instead of pendulum monsters. That archetype has 2 main different effects, either fusion summon or act as interruption and they could have easily been split into pendulum/monster effects.

[@WhatsUrName0o7]

The problem with Pendulums is that they are strictly better effect monsters in a vacuum. Konami held back on making them because they could have easily done to effect monsters what effect monsters did to Normal Monsters. Be grateful that Konami spared you from power creep.

[@galaxyvulture6649]

Absolutely this and they basically give you two monster effects that synergize with the entire card type.

[@kevinchester9871]

Pendulums were what brought me back into game. I like the fact if you on the wrong end to a Dark Hole or Raigeki you weren’t automatically out of the game even if you weren’t 0Lp that turn. Odd-Eyes Phantom Dragon was card I thought out when you mention what card makes you think about where to put it, it’s scale effect let’s you boost a monster or it’s monster effect does additional Burn when itself does battle damage while it was Pend Summoned. Yes it requires you the have Odd-Eyes cards in scales for its effects to apply and has Mid scale of 4 but Odd-Eyes is predominately at Lv 7 deck so it’s not really a detriment itself. I see Pendulums as very adaptable deck style which has those one or two cards that stop it in its tracks but what archetype doesn’t. I’d love it if Odd-Eyes can have another first of its kind again in near future haha I’m never putting deck down

[@YukiFubuki.]

i think a pend archetype doesnt need to go all in on pends like the fact that they're continuous spells can mean a lot in just helping any archetype while not a pend deck exactly the recent predaplant supports is a good example because the pends cards they got just help the deck so much in what it aims to do yet at the same time actually pendulum summoning isnt mandatory but just something they can do on the side that is still a boon also would baronne be more balance if they errata it so additionally each you can only use 1 of its effects a turn and only once every 2 turns so the player has the choice between an omni-negate, targeted destroyed and a revive every 2 turns but not all of them within a turn of 2

[@jaimehernandez4962]

With vaylantz, they need more fusion monster for their archetype, either fusion spell that add deck to extra deck to fusion monster or 1-2 material build-in summon condition. United should been 2 material. 3 material for one interruption with no protection....

[@luigifan4585]

*needs good fusions As stated, the current ones do jack shit in the current metagame

[@lukemacinnes5124]

​@@luigifan4585the new one is ok it allows you to use the pop/negat as a quick effect, if they had more main deck cards that could become interaction it would probably be an ok deck as that's an easy two interruptions on top of whatever other stuff you end on

[@autobotstarscream765]

I presume the card designer expected you to summon it with Greater Polymerization, because Yu-Gi-Oh! cards are designed by monkeys and Tragoedia. 🤭

[@lukemacinnes5124]

@@autobotstarscream765 that would honestly be preferable to using the in archetype fusion effect if it at least let you summon any fusion it would atually work as decent interuption etc. but nah

[@lucasalarcon3230]

Endymion and pend magician could play midrange in fact pend magician was a midrange deck before electrumite, and the apex avain build is also midrange build

[@dudono1744]

For me, pends have the same issue as rituals : The mechanics have crazy design space but Konami doesn't exploit it much. Pends have 2 textboxes and weird interactions to design stuff around while Rituals have a whole card for their summoning requirements. However we're getting interesting pend stuff, but I'm still annoyed by 99% of ritual spells being "add levels".

[@popeval6654]

we need a javelin beetle retrain so bad...

[@israeldelarosa5461]

99% of Ritual Summoning is add level? Because that’s how Rituals work. You Ritual by using a Spell and adding levels. It’s the bastard deformed lovechild of Fusion and Synchro. It’s the decks that break this rule that you’re thinking of. They aren’t the norm or anything. Same reason why most Synchro decks have you add levels but Ursarctics subtract.

[@dudono1744]

@@israeldelarosa5461 I can understand that but it's a bit boring that it's always the same, especially with synchros already doing that. I agree that generic ritual spells should use levels since the first rituals used that and it makes balancing easier (We saw what happens when a generic ritual spell doesn't use levels), but spells for 1-2 monsters should sometimes have other costs, for archetypal ritual spells it's a bit trickier.

[@galaxyvulture6649]

​@@dudono1744Drytrons changed it up letting people use attack for ritual summons and that rock ritual deck even let you ritual summon with quick effects

[@dudono1744]

@@galaxyvulture6649 Drytrons is a nice idea (but shouldn't have been generic) and the rocks should honestly just have been ritual pendulums. Ritual summoning with quick effects was already a thing with transonic bird (basically verte but for rituals)

[@FyrenRei]

the new sky striker monsters (except hamp) should've been pendulums that focus more on being spells with the bonus that they could also pend summon and that would've also made azaela a card that is realistically playable in striker

[@gerhmanthefirsthoonter161]

Pendulums being complex is a myth , up until md was released i was a hardcore yugi boomer , haven't played the game in 10 years + pendulum cards didn't even look like yugioh cards to me , but once i pulled a glossy astrograph and endymion , i liked the way they looked , Endymion was a throw back to breaker the magical warrior so i decided to learn the deck , took me a couple of days max and i got it down , now i absolutely love pendulum . It's really not that hard to grasp . i have since learned to play every pend deck out there with relative ease .

[@ct1296]

This is a fair comment but I don’t think it completely grasps what people mean by “complexity”. There are a few things to say here. Firstly, let’s get the volume of card text out of the way. Endymion is a great example of a card that has too much text to feasibly comprehend after a single read-through. You can argue that a “good player” should know what the card does (what its payoffs are, and what needs to happen in order to be able to facilitate them) - but this isn’t healthy for the state of the game. Yugioh already has an issue where a card’s strength can completely depend on the other cards within that archetype - the fact that a hypothetical Kuriboh Circular would be unplayable, but Mathmech Circular enables an entire strategy by itself, is an obvious example, since a new player would have no way of knowing the difference between those two cards. We don’t need to add to this problem by having archetypes which consist of individual cards that have a higher wordcount than that of a full magic/hearthstone deck. Secondly are the mechanics. With every other summoning mechanic in yugioh, you don’t need to play the cards to understand how they work. Fusions combine monsters, synchros add levels, xyz match levels and links focus on the quantity of monsters used for summons. Pendulums are different in the sense that they have their own unique ruleset. If you activate a pendulum card in the scale and I chain baronne to its activation, it goes to the graveyard. If I chain spright red and tribute an xyz/link (which technically negates effect and then destroys), it goes to the face-up ED. This is unintuitive, and is just one example. The dimensional fissure example from the video is another, as is the idea that link material goes to the ED whilst detached XYZ material goes to grave. These are issues with wider yugioh rulings rather than with pend itself - but yugioh has enough issues with complex rulings already, and the fact that the existence of pendulum monsters requires you to memorise additional ruling information for a lot of already complex interactions is an inherent issue. Thirdly, let’s talk about design space. One notorious thing about pendulum that wasn’t addressed in the video is their tendency to exploit soft once-per-turns - and the fact that many cards mix HOPT effects and SOPT effects across their two sizeable text boxes. This is entirely unintuitive for anybody trying to understand the choke points of a deck unless they’ve played it themselves - and exploring said choke points is a huge part of how games are won and lost. Yugioh was initially designed entirely around the concept of a normal summon, and for many years this helped simplify the game - if you can prevent me from using the effect of my normal summoned monster, there’s a good chance I will have to pass turn without accomplishing anything else. Whilst the game has developed past the point of this being a hard rule, a lot of the logic still remains - most archetypes have 1-3 main starters which help facilitate the summoning of boss monsters, with midrange decks tending to go straight from these starters into 1 or 2 bosses, whilst aggro/combo decks often take more convoluted lines using extra deck monsters as engine pieces. In general, the skill test when playing against these decks is somewhat universal - prioritise using interruptions on the most powerful engine piece. An imperm on Mo-Ye might not stop a player with Longyuan in hand from combing off, and a branded player who can still make Mirrorjade using Branded In White might not insta-lose to an ash on branded fusion - but these are generally easily identifiable choke points that you should be aiming to hit. With pendulum decks, the face-up extra deck is essentially an additional resource pool, but if you read through the cards sitting in this area midway through a pendulum combo, you have very few ways of distinguishing which of these cards are likely to be recycled, and which aphave served their purpose. Double Iris Magician is a great example - in pendulum magician decks, this card is frequently searched, used, and later recycled, in order to add both the pendulumgraph spell card and trap card to hand. In Valyantz decks that run the card, they frequently only use this card once, since their combo is more occupied with searching + setting up floodgates and protection than using the disruption provided by time pendulumgraph. Astrograph Sorcerer is hugely problematic, since the card can trigger anywhere between 1-4 times per turn depending on how many ways the deck in question can plus off of popping their scales. This makes interacting with the strategy incredibly difficult - you either need a comprehensive understanding of how every pendulum staple interacts with every pendulum deck, or you need to get lucky and hope that the interaction you tried to keep your opponent off of isn’t just going to be recycled and performed again later on. I do believe that decks shouldn’t have auto-lose choke points - but I feel like it should at least be apparent which interactions are the most important to resolve, and where your priorities should lie when trying to stop a strategy. Pendulum just doesn’t work in this way. Finally is the issue of how these cards co-exist - or fail to co-exist - with other non-pendulum archetypes. Master Rule 4 gave pretty much every non-link archetype at least one link monster, and there are plenty of archetypes (rokket/borrel, @ignister, salamangreat etc) which combine various summoning mechanics together. Currently, the only archetypes which combine pendulum summoning with other mechanics (D/D/D, SHS) tend to barely use their face-up extra deck as intended, and instead use scales for a one-time mass-summon, or for powerful scale effects. This is by no means an issue - it just means that on the whole, “pure” pendulum decks are playing Uno whilst the rest of the metagame is playing Snap - the gameplans of pendulum decks run parallel to those of non-pendulum decks, all the way up until the pend deck has a tonne of bodies on field and decides to make apo + baronne with the materials. It doesn’t matter how “easy to learn” a pend deck is if it’s playing a different game entirely to the rest of the decks in the meta. Overall, whilst the cards might not be difficult to learn and understand, good card design shouldn’t require you to build and practice a specific kind of deck to gain that sort of knowledge - especially when no other deck in any given format requires that level of investment.

[@trippersigs2248]

Yu-Gi-Oh players and "it's easy for me so it's easy for everyone" name a better duo.

[@qualivia]

@@trippersigs2248 True, Guy saying it took him a couple of days when most decks in other games take at most an hour to learn.

[@gab4198]

I just don't like that i have to put a link monster before doing pendulum plays or not being able to make advantage at all with them, penduluns don't have main deck boss monsters to summon so often and it is clear that konami didn't intend for it to special summon out of pendulum summoning that much, so basicaly the pendulum piles are the only way to play pendulum archetypes because you need to run lots of scales but really need those 2 summons so you can make at least 2 link arrows before you can summon the monsters back from graveyard, while some combo decks don't even use pendulum and can summon reliably their entire hand and half the deck, use generic boss monsters from the extra deck anyways while having little to no restrictions, but only pendulum gets the hate, it dosn't matter what deck it is, they could make a vanila pendulum with no scale effect and someone would complain.

[@Groxworld1]

I think a design space that I'd like to see in Pend since it can't usually fit non-engine is to just let its engine be incredibly versatile Going First or Second, I'm aware cards like Purple Poison and Endymion kind of do this already, but I think they can really expand on it You gotta -2 to combo? What if those scales can trade for cards on the field, or D.D. Crow, or Book of Moon, personally I really like having a lot of answers in-engine and I think giving Pend this sort of flexibility can help with its issues (if balanced properly) Someone in chat was going "decks just being engine and non-engine is kinda boring" and they are spitting

[@fleurdelisen4]

6:01 I've been looking for this very clip for a while now LOL

[@shioya7570]

Majesty Pegasus is a pendulum card that you want both in the scale and to summon, shes so important to Dracoslayer cause she is both the best summon and best scale at the same time

[@codfin846]

Waiting for the day we get a Pendulum deck that all the scale effects are quick effects and actually useful

[@nbonasoro]

I want a pendulum deck that, as a cost of activating the scale, puts a pendulum card face up in the extra deck from the deck. Then the cards get advantage from being shuffles back into the deck and thw cost of activating the archetypes spells/traps is shuffling a face up pendulum monster into the deck. Get rid of the emz linitation for pendulum summoners and this gets rid of the drawback of going neg 2 to setup the scales.

[@darkjak565]

Harvest Angel of Doom feels like my perfect situation for what a utility pendulum card should do, and what you should be able to consider using in non-pendulum decks. I had my eyes opened to using the card in Nouvelles, of all archetypes. There are times when I want it to cycle through my scale area, or when I want to normal it for the turn, hit it with duality, etc etc. Not to mention it establishes a backrow for certain scenarios given on HOW it's used.

[@davide94extreme39]

Don't worry, Spright is more broken than all pendulum decks combined.

[@mk30b25]

A control pend deck would be interesting

[@tylerwylde4100]

24:25 I remember my Endymion Gaurdragon deck. Shit was fun. End on Seals, Hot Red, 1-2 Jackel, and an Endymion with counters. Going second was no issue either. Borrelsword turbo or just break the board in engine with Cerb/Reflection/Endymion

[@Tyjoeee]

The only pendulum monsters I’ve ever used have been the predaplant ones in a branded predaplant deck I used for a bit.

[@justusneubeck]

a quick spell pendulum card as a searchable, in any deck either summon or quickplay for recovery or interaction. It would be an easy and interesting design for supportwaves to maybe even connect pendulum architypes.

[@rivashanmolefi7326]

Counter fairy played the one pendulum card 👌🏾

[@ejstephens7918]

I actually really like how they are starting to splash pendulum cards into other archetypes. Poissoniere De Nouvells and Plunder Patrollship Jord both make great use of their pendulum and regular monster effects within their archetype without ever really wanting to pendulum summon. I wouldn't mind seeing Konami do this for a few more decks.

[@darealwhosane]

Would love continuous spells that had pend scales and searched cards

[@mr.wassell7885]

It could be neat to have a going-first type effect in the moster and a going-second type effect in the spell

[@TrueReverse74]

I think pendulums have a place with ritual monsters and normal monster support. I've come around to them when I use them as support for archetypes that need help. I think it's cool to have monsters that also serve as spells to help out. I think if they stick with that, I think they can be relevant without being broken. Apodrakosis, Nouvelles are great examples, if they made more cards like that. I can get behind pendulums. Wow, you basically said my thoughts out loud, I like pendulums when they work as what they look like, monsters that also work as spell cards even if they aren't technically spell cards. That's when they are at their best, rather than a whole deck, they can be an addition to already formed archetypes or new archetypes as generic or as specific support. Like magikey, i'd love for a ritual pendulum monster from that archetype, or pendulum normal monster that can special summon itself with the attributes in the graveyard or something cool stuff like that. The new apodrakosis card I like a lot.

[@JADGERBOMBS]

Pendulum is unique to design because its not a type, it's a subtype and in the same category as spirit's and tuners, hence why you have synchro and fusion pendulums. It's mean to branch out on what already exists.

[@DevastatingWarrior]

One of my favorite archetypes is Vaylantz, but god I almost throw up everytime I think about their optimal endboard being NS fossil dyna, activate secret village pass. And I definitely hate how many generic EX deck monsters are just such powerful cards, instead of the in-archetype monsters being the powerful cards you wanna end on (obviously with some exceptions)

[@Jrpg_guy]

The og boss monster of vaylantz is so bad. Like who thought that was a good idea. Thank god we gor the recent one lol

[@Rofy_TV]

I think Vaylantz is a deck that is 2 monsters and a link boss monster away from being a very good deck. Need to replace the 2 monsters that use dice and coin mechanics, and get a link moster that is archetype locked that you want to end on, instead of the generics and/or floodgates.

[@luminous3558]

Its not the generic ED monsters fault that vaylantz literally does nothing except put vanilla bodies on board and their only interruption prior to arktos was a 3 mat fusion that didnt even do anything if you left the field spells up. The fieldspells also work against you real bad if you go first unless you pop them with electrumite which isnt archetypal. Konami needs to give pend decks a reason to end on their own cards because currently there is none and banning generic extra deck cards just makes pend even less playable.

[@shioya7570]

Agreed. I love this deck alot but before I dropped it all I ended up doing with it was searching Cyber Stien and doing toxic shit with it in order to make the deck playable. Would love to see a new wave of Vaylantz support

[@ultradolp1335]

Vaylantz is really interesting. At first I am against the deck because they are making the game very complicated but the more I learn the more I enjoy how dynamic their gameplay is. I think they just need to continue the direction to make it more fun (Maybe fusion/synchro/link in archetype!). Sadly the best thing people doing with it now is floodgate turbo but that I think is an entire different issue that Konami will need to solve first

[@nasch3391]

magician after agov is shown some success in ocg

[@nasch3391]

just revert back to MR 3 for pendulum

[@LemonCookies]

I play nemleria with tistina together lol. I use the nem monsters to tribute for tistinas and overlaying for rank 10 superdreadnaughts. Its super fun

[@JorgeLuiz487]

I think the only time i saw a small pend engine just to summon guys is an engine for prank kids using joker monkeyboard and lizardraw after the cat was hit aside from super heavy samurai

[@harrymcnally4290]

The draco slayers generally have both good monster and scale effects

[@residentgrey]

a 1950 beatstick can be enough some days.

[@MrGshinobi]

I love pendulums, i love how unique and crazy the design for that mechanic is, but i do wish konami took MORE risks and did more crazy shit with them. For example: -pend effects that were different based on WHICH pendulum scale you placed the card in -different scale numbers in one card, like a pendulum with a scale 1 AND a scale 8 -pendulum handtraps that you placed on the extra deck or scale after being used as handtraps -pendulum rituals -pendulum links -fuck it, PENDULUM TRAPS

[@dudono1744]

The last 3 are so obvious, it's surprising we don't have them yet.

[@dannyboers4704]

@@dudono1744 there is already a pend ritual

[@aghadlarhen9397]

There not being a pendulum link is the worse given how it would be a great way to use the link arrows to create more linked zones to facilitate pendulum OG design of being able to summon multiple from deck. Pendulum Traps is actually an interesting way to make something interesting like generic Artifacts. (Being able to be set only in the scale zones but activate their effects at Spell Speed 3, like counter traps. Heck, they could even make it so that if you manage to flip BOTH your scales on your opponents turn, you can Pendulum Summon on their turn.

[@YuniversalYT]

Pend monsters you can place face down in the pend zones and flip em up like traps would be so cool, and then when both are flipped you can do a pend summon on opponent’s turn

[@playmaker7871]

@@aghadlarhen9397only thing that makes pendulum links difficult is the clutter that would come from having the pend effect text box and link arrows Other than that, pendulum links sound cool

[@GleamingGarmore]

I wanna tell people about how cool Pend Magician is but then I remember that deck got to the point I enjoyed the most in TWENTY EIGHTEEN! I haven’t been able to play the Pendulumgraph control variant for FIVE YEARS.

[@abcrx32j]

I think the design for the Nouvelles pendulum is great

[@lordeng1ish]

Odd-Eyes Revolution Dragon and Chaos Emperor Dragon feel really good to play as pendulums in non-pendulum decks.

[@lordeng1ish]

I really enjoyed the early pendulum cards. My friend put the magicians in madolche just to pendulum summon out a fist full of madolches. I played the zefra tellars in tellarknights to do the same thing. And I also really enjoyed the Qliphort gameplay when it wasn't backed by floodgates. It felt very 2010 turned modern by normal summoning spirit reaper and passing, then saccing it for three monsters and killing my opponent.

[@alphariusomegon8507]

I'm still trying to make Kashtira and Nemleria work. a father and daughter deck.

[@santiviera]

A sleepy daughter that spawns horrific monsters who look cool or cute from afar, and a dimension conquering father that spawns horrific monsters who look cool or cute from afar. Truly a match made in heaven that could only happen through adoption.

[@wickederebus]

How to design a mid-Range Pendulum deck; Make an archetype of all pendulum monsters. Have the pend effects search traps/monsters. Maybe Low Scale for Traps, high scale for monsters? Basically make the scales able to set the other scale, and then give the deck a few good Synchro/Xyz bosses, akin to what Mathmech and Tri-Brigade have. Seriously, a trap that says "pendulum during your opponents turn, then perform 2 simultaneous Xyz/Synchro summons" Xeno lock it if you want. Or make the deck all level 4 monsters, with 3 and 5 scales to screw over other strategies Make the monsters all also have a decent monster effect, like what Archfiend Eccentrick does, making your turn 1 or turn 2 normal summons into hazard clearers, or protection for your pendulum summon later in the turn. Ideally make the toolbox of Xyz/Synchros be pendulum monsters themselves, who move your scales to the Face Up Extra deck, then set themselves to your scales. They will need a link 3 with all 3 downward arrows. Maybe an effect to Pend summon again? This nets you more materials to pend back later on for mid-range recursion. Example hand: 5 monsters. Place low and high scale Search for trap and a monster Normal summon 1. Pend 3. Link 3. Pend for 3 again. Make 2 Xyz/Synchros Set the trap. Pass. Opponent's turn, flip the trap. Summon for 3, make a Synchro/Xyz. Have 3 to 4 interaction points via your monsters.

[@flamvellyt1910]

That's literally majespecters

[@arrownoir]

I actually thought the scales would have different numbers and scale colors had to match. I somehow remember that’s how they were.

[@SaltymanGaming]

I've been playing a lot of Zefra and it's definitely a mid-range deck. I usually play like 15 hand traps, D/D/D Requiem and Machenix, Endymion stuff, and a ton of search spells.. Scales are never an issue because Zefraath is whatever you need it to be and is easily searchable.

[@andrewweiker1482]

Predaplant feels like a good hybrid of pendulum and fusion.

[@lioneart19]

If pendulum cards had two different numbers and could be placed either as low or high scale would make them more splashable. Of course their effects would then need to be weaker. Maybe that's a cool next step, generic non-arvhetypal double-scale pendulum cards. Or maybe an archetype of double scales that are arvhetype-locked but can then have strong effects.

[@anitabath2636]

I feel like pendulum would have more of an identity if you had more of a reason to end on scales. I see the reason most scales are just used for consistency/pluses, scales inherently minus you and that hurts. But I want more effects similar to amorphages, but less toxic floodgates more just interruptions. Scales are either go +1 or an irrelevant battle trap like gain 500 attack when you attack. Having a reason to end on scales with actual interactive effects would actually make it less generic

[@shina4229]

Interesting thing about some of these solutions is that they are basically saying: "Oh you can have pendulum cards, just don't pendulum summon".

[@jamespage7924]

Just don’t forgot Josh, the cool price of an archfiend eccentrick ($100) 😊

[@StarfieldDisarray]

Paused the video just as i saw zuzu_bq say in chat "You can't force Shock Master in a level 7 deck but you can force Baronne in any deck with a tuner". I did briefly see discussion in 2013 about including Heraldic Beast Berners Falcon as a tech in Dragon Ruler to make Shock Master against Spellbooks. I don't think it ever saw play as it was rightfully discarded as a meme but you actually **can** force Shock Master in a level 7 deck.

[@esrohm6460]

Pend is at its best when the deck never intents to set 2 scales/pendulum summon. And in top of that fusion decks like predaplant or lunalight who use the pendulum mechanic to make fusion materials to fusion spells when needed

[@MattIsAMage]

oh this is the video where the sub clip comes from

[@jujubeanz009]

I like D/D/D because there’s a lot of good cards but then there’s bad but ALSO ALSO situational. That is a perfect archetype in my opinion because some of it’s strengths are it’s weaknesses it has so many boss monsters to choose from and it can restrict you to playing only Fiends in most cases. If you lose a boss, the way the deck plays can just bring them back in most cases or do something else. It’s quite diverse and it received 2 cards (Gilgamesh and Gryphon) that are only OP in that deck.

[@residentgrey]

Archfiend Eccentrick is crucial even with its scale!! Getting 8+ can be a PITA.

[@residentgrey]

I have specific pendulum monsters in ALL my decks on DL. They provide universal consistency and draw out some great tech that I have depended on to win. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get around the meta I am behind on.

[@CrowQQ]

Imagine something like Runick or Skystriker that rely really really heavily on their quick spells but with pends.... Quick spell Pendulum monsters ?!?!?!

[@zacdredge3859]

In regards to Baronne I think it's notable that older high-level Synchros typically required 3 materials and that most Baronne abuse is just things like 3+7 or 4+6 and therefore doesn't have the same commitment as something like Trishula which is obviously a strong card but by simply requiring two non-tuner materials is far less commonly abused.

[@autobotstarscream765]

The card designers wanted to do something to make high-level Tuners and high-level non-Tuners other than Synchros matter to Synchro Summoning to get away from the original paradigm of using tiny Tuners and tiny non-Tuners to either make tiny Synchros that make Delta Accel Synchros or dump an entire tiny field into one Synchro Monster.

[@zacdredge3859]

@@autobotstarscream765 Sure, but that doesn't justify the fact that they often outperform the others. In other words you can now use a Normal summoned Tuner with a bigger extender to make a bigger Synchro that's just better than most level 6-8 Synchros could hope to be and instead of both strategies seeing play we have the new thing taking over rather than adding diversity, in classic Konami style. So the point about two card Synchros stands regardless of what your preference might be; they *had* a way of balancing high level synchros, took a restraint away but then didn't actually make those monsters balanced around having one less restraint.

[@autobotstarscream765]

@zacdredge3859 Like I said, I don't think they were interested in maintaining things, I think they wanted the days of tiny Synchros and swarm Synchros representing the mechanic to end with 5D's, so they deliberately dumpstered the Goyo Guardians and created the Chaos Angels.

[@shakeweller]

They couldeasily make control pendulum decks so its not just kitchensink combos. For example pendulum effects could be like striker cards for example and the monster effects like the striker link monsters. Just an example btw there are hundreds of interesting pendulum control decks they could do

[@Protect_all_ljf3forms]

Really need pen link cards if they’re going to be inherently “linked” 🥁

[@MoldMonkey93]

When I first played Yugioh, trying to convince my friends to let me use my Lunalight Wolf (This was when Tiger was still banned) took forever.

[@eu4um]

I said this on the main vid, but the bigger issue is the generic extra deck cards. I think we can all agree that generic extra deck cards and floodgates are the real problem with the game.

[@mrkilljr.8743]

I play speedroids. Marble machine is the only playable pend card and not because it's a pend but because it's another searcher besides your only one Terrortop. Its pend effect is a terrible battle trap effect so bad it makes me want to replace it with another effect better suited for grind game. Then I looked at another speedroid pend monster that returns banished Synchros back into the extra, if Marble machine had that effect, then it would have a great effect 1st turn and a great one for the grind game making the card alive 90% of the time as speedroids do banish a lot for cost TLDR: Pends have the distinction of being spell and monster at the same time. Make one of the effects a starter or extender effect and the other one a recovery/grind mechanism. Who cares if the deck doesn't want to pend summon!

[@augostosx5647]

20 more minutes and it would be full stream xD

[@metal123498]

What you said about how they release so many decks now they don't have any time to balance the cards but corona was not that long ago and lasted a while so there is a chance that Konami just has a bunch of card designed that they couldn't print during 2020 and 2021 and now we're getting the decks they inteded for those years and they're rushing those out so they can get to the 2023 cards they're making right now

[@solobugg5087]

35:03 a lot can change in a year, huh

[@unk0wn836]

At 6:01 farfa subathon flash backs

[@joshwilliams5845]

majespecters was a solid midrange pendulumn deck

[@joanaguayoplanell4912]

Meanwhile Crystal Beasts just get to Pendulum Summon multiple times per turn without caring for link arrows and without going minus to place any scales...

[@residentgrey]

Solfas are interesting. Igknights have merit. The spirit pendulum cards are another curiosity. I have some brilliant cards spicing all my decks.

[@nooblangpoo]

inb4 konami makes a multiscale card which has different effects when used as high scale or low scale

[@SORA899]

Tbh i was confused about pendulum when i test them at gamescom 😂

[@kb24shortoreo21]

The Og lv 7 pend deck with avian and odd eyes

[@Vinylmelody1517]

Watched this right after watching a video of someone making an apo in abyss actors along with multiple other negates. It's a two, sometimes three, card combo so it's not consistent but i can definitely feel how much Konami limits a lot of the newer pend decks. If half the abyss actor cards didn't xeno lock you it'd probably be broken

[@Grayewick]

Reworking Pendulums into having different Pendulum Scales depending on which side of the scale it is placed on UNIRONICALLY fixes Pendulums' problem of necessitating players to play a critical mass of them in a Pendulum Deck. This could also open up the possibility of Pendulums seeing play outside of dedicated Pendulum decks, making them feel more welcome to play rather than have them have this weird, isolationist play style.

[@1997dartagnan]

Free the pendulum. Let me pend summon 6 from the extra deck Konami, you cowards

[@Abyssionknight]

With the new archetypes coming out that are continuous spells / traps, pendulums are becoming even less unique since now their own unique niche is being taken from them. So what I think would be cool, and uniquely pendulum, is pendulum effects that activate while face up on the ED. For example, imagine some Ancient Warrior Pendululm. While face up on the ED he's a general looking down over the battlefield thematically, and has some Quick Effect while up there to add himself to the field/ spell trap zone / pendulum zone to trigger some sort of effect. Thematically that's really cool, and it's also a new style of effect that only pendulums are capable of. You could even create an archetype focused around this idea. For example a 'heaven and hell' deck where some cards go on top of the ED, some go to GY and they kind of ying yang back and forth to do stuff. Or an archetype that maybe works based on whatever card is at the top of your face up ED and gives you cards to manipulate the face up ED order. Not sure how good that'd be but it'd definitely be unique and outside of negates most decks wouldn't actually have ways to interact with those cards, which would make them pretty powerful potentially.

[@TheMegaultrachicken]

Yuya used pendulum and they were just fine