Mathematically, the Duelist Cup is a Human Rights Violation

[@lordgrub12345]

I didn't need math to tell me this

[@alfonso9805]

That is right, we already knew it for experience, and to tell others with evidence is much better with the maths way

[@alejandrooceguera4656]

But now you have it

[@doomoftheend]

Math - not even once

[@BatkoNashBandera774]

@@doomoftheend but you need to do math to know whether it is 'once' , ';;'

[@RenoReborn]

If someone dies during this event, we can't automatically assume they died of exhaustion, Konami might've just implemented the Shadow Realm update to make the grind that much more immersive, really give you that true King of Games experience.

[@r3zaful]

gbf guild war have more torturing grind and participant than this and no one has died since 2015, in fact there is more deaths in fighting game players than gbf, despite what people said here.

[@polar_inertia]

​@@r3zaful you are everywhere defending this crap. f right off. 😊

[@qwopiretyu]

​@@r3zaful that's due to thuggery

[@BainesMkII]

When players deliberately switch to lower win-rate decks simply because those faster decks let them play more total matches, the idea that this is a skill testing format goes right out the window.

[@cryomancer2768]

it still does it since the amount of games will average it out where skilled players will place higher hence why you can get Tasuku to win a DC with PUNK

[@SissypheanCatboy]

@@cryomancer2768 sure it tests skill, so would forcing a fighting game players to do every match as a best of 50. Its an unnecessary test of endurance and patience that does nothing but stifle skill and instead make it a contest of "who can sacrifice the most of their wellbeing for a card game."

[@Markm8]

Yea

[@midshipman8654]

@@SissypheanCatboy , there definitely is a balance to be struck between the randomness of too few games so just anyone gets in and the endurance of too many so that it goes past testing any reasonable consistant skill and dedication. I feel like a balance to that bell curve is definitely possible. like, something taking 6 or even 8 or 10 hours straight of thier own volition I think is fine for someone trying to do something at a high professional level to show dedication. or maybe 60 hours over a month, but 60 hours straight is crazy.

[@Zexion0]

Then you got people who take around 8-10 minutes PER TURN and you know that the system is just broken. The meta is just worked. No game should take that long

[@dahakaguardianofthetimelin4780]

It's a real intense, torturous grind, but when you finally hold that sweet Nintendo Switch in your hands, you realize that shaving years of your life was all worth it in the end!

[@bobbybero7452]

🤣😂

[@glitchmakerygo]

Imagine doing the grind on the Nintendo Switch just to win the same console that allowed you to compete

[@Miwles]

what's funny is working a job for this amount of time could buy you a Switch, possibly multiple

[@ZekeTheThunderWolf]

TO REALIZE IT CANT PLAY MONSTER HUNTER WILDS USELESS

[@hahathatsgreat2]

@@Miwles Josh played 62 Hours for a $300 item. $4.80 per hour. Sorry, I got that wrong, he played that long for a CHANCE to win the Switch.

[@MBTYuGiOh]

not the SCHMIDTJACK

[@SomeBritishGuy1]

Noway the white man is here

[@bravo_10]

Cursed image

[@double2helix]

It works it got me to click

[@LeAndre_McCoy]

No way the Yu-Gi-Oh streamer watches Yu-Gi-Oh content? ​@@SomeBritishGuy1

[@redtaileddolphin1875]

Not to mention the homestuck talksprite rofl

[@HowdyItsMarc]

I played for 16 hours, went to sleep for 4 hours, woke up and played until i passed out. Only made it to top 1000, its just too much man.

[@NinjaXFiles]

Yeah this is why I never try on these events in any of these games because of how unhealthy it is to no life the rank to the top. No thanks I would rather play for fun.

[@Nothing2Say]

bro why are you lying so much with a 60% winrate you would easily win the duelist cup it is absolutely impossible not being in the top 10 with that winrate and if you had that winrate after 20h you wouldve continued. probably meant "about 50%", at best and only for the first 10k DP the most delusional thing is believing that you need to play 24/7. you can easily sleep for 8h/day and win it all. sleeping for 4h doesnt allow your brain to rest, you would misplay so many games that it would bring you hours worth of winning down in the ladder.

[@HowdyItsMarc]

@@Nothing2Say Now that you mentioned it I'm pretty sure that I did the math of my winrate based off the past 20 games that master duel allows you to see, because I did not write down every win and loss so the math would be different yeah. I want to say I had close to 30k points but this duelist cup was like a year ago so I could be off.

[@HarambeFilms]

That's pretty rough, but that's honestly nothing new for online games. Oldschool runescape hold tournament that are 45 days long and people play 12-18 hours sometimes even more almost the entire time. I know it's not healthy, but I think this is normal for a competition.

[@senseisawk]

Bruh

[@randommaster06]

Konami already makes actual gambling machines, so we shouldn't be surprised they tweaked the DC to keep people glued to the screen.

[@jthememeking]

I played for a day and a half straight and made to top 20 in my region. My win ratio was insane great and i thought i deserved a nice break and went on a date with my wife. Came back to grind a little more and saw myself at 300 and something. I realized i will never make to top 10 without going insane. Doesnt matter how good i was.

[@bobbybero7452]

“How dare you go on a date with your wife!” - Konami

[@loumcboy]

Not master duelist material.

[@anusaukko6792]

You have a wife? Not master duelist material.

[@PedroKing19]

Konami devs don't have loved ones so they didn't account for this

[@ShaggyRogers1]

Imagine trying to grind while also taking care of a baby. Baby needs changed? You just dropped 10 spots on the board.

[@KaiAfterKai]

HELLO GUYS THE DB GRINDER HERE, AND TODAY WE'RE BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER 365 DAY OF STRAIGHT GOONING. NOW I KNOW MY LAST EDGING STREAK DIDN'T LAST PAST THE 600 DAY MARK, BUT I HAVE CONFIDENCE I CAN MAKE IT PAST THIS TIME. I'VE BEEN DOING A LOT OF PRACTICE IN THE BEDROOM, AND HONESTLY, I THINK I MIGHT MAKE IT TO NEXT YEARS CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNEY.

[@OutOfCharacters]

I'm sorry for not including all of it, I didn't think the people could handle it to be honest

[@KaiAfterKai]

@@OutOfCharacters One day, when humanity needs it most, the full message will be revealed and deliver us to salvation.

[@hahathatsgreat2]

Gotta love to see it

[@BboySquidfoot]

Ayoooo lmaoooooo

[@OzzyII]

Was not expecting to hear your voice when I queued this video up

[@juanmarcelo589]

We should have the 72 hours divided over a week, so the timer only goes down when you are logged in. Not only would be healthy but more fair in the timing side.

[@Nyhmnim]

Hey, this was a really great video ! You said the hours of combing and research wasn’t worth it, but i think it made an awesome watch! :)

[@OutOfCharacters]

hey man, thanks so much for checking it out! it definitely feels that way now that it's done and people have been so supportive.

[@saintsloth9463]

I agree this is very very well done. Do not discredit your hours of research, and hard work. You earned my sub. ❤

[@matija5748]

Destroying your life and health for a konami's goody bag that is worth like 300$. Konami created a sweatshop but players happily jumped into it, it's a perfect one way abusive relationship.

[@bobbybero7452]

Emphasis on abusive

[@sollybrown8217]

Destroying your health? It is three days... Its really not that bad.

[@pannnella]

@@sollybrown8217dude if this isn’t destroying your health in your eyes then you need to reevaluate your mindset man 😭 every other normal person agrees that it’s pretty damn bad

[@semiclassical7620]

The TCG equivalent of power slap

[@stellabiderman4056]

As a mathematician who works with the math underpinning Elo regularly, I can't overstate how bonkers the 1000 point cutoff for a win is. Heck, DP doesn't actually count as an Elo system as a result. There is no justification for this. I mean that literally: whatever the organizers' goals are, there's a better way to accomplish that. Even if the goal is to hurt players and force them to grind constantly they could do something far simpler that would actually encourage that more. That needs to be the first thing changed, and then assess how the dynamics evolve. Anything else is a bad bandage over this issue. It's not actually true that in an Elo system point win and loss are always symmetric. When players are close in rating and have played many games that'll look like it's true, but it's very often false. The key concept is that the difference in win rates tell you the odds of one player winning, and the score adjustments come downstream from getting better estimates of the true skill level of the players.

[@nachohangover5104]

Out of curiosity how does the cap on losing DP affect things? I understand the +1000 minimum is *the* big issue but is the -1200 cap also contribiting to the problem?

[@rakninja]

but number go up!

[@stellabiderman4056]

@@nachohangover5104 It probably does matter and the best approach would be to remove both caps and see what happens as a starting point. After posting this comment I was talking about this at work and we came up with an argument for why *some* cap on gain / loss might make sense for YGO specifically: the game is pretty high variance. If it's the case that, e.g., a top-level player is pretty much guaranteed to lose 20% of their matches against a bottom-tier player who is nevertheless above a minimum skill bar and playing a meta deck due to randomness, then there's a skill differential at which a loss is much more likely to be due to variance than skill. At this point, whether an opponent is rated 100 or 1000 points below you doesn't actually meaningfully influence your win probability and arguably should be treated the same. In most games this isn't big enough effect to be worth implementing, but if YGO is as high-variance as it seems it may be a use-case. Notably, Pokemon battles is also pretty high variance and doesn't seem to need this factor. In terms of the impact of randomness, Pokemon >> Magic > Chess, so how much more impact randomness has on YHO than Pokemon could be an interesting case study to investigate this. Any such factor should **not** be chosen arbitrarily or even heuristically, but by using specific formulae and careful analysis of the win distribution as a function of rating difference. It should also be trialed at multiple different levels to observe what the impact on ladder dynamics.

[@saraakthefgomaster7694]

15:31 Never forget the day that blunder got 6-0'd by lead Darm-G

[@OutOfCharacters]

May it remain in our minds forever

[@nicolasturetta7959]

Blunder my dawg on the mic i can't blunder

[@im_Meli]

AGENCY

[@djdannydan1203]

Yugioh and agency in one vod? Day 1 like butterfree, pidgey, rattata

[@luminous3558]

Yeah its odd that they dont have a mandatory 7hrs lock out period for the duelist cup like other games with similar grind events have. Make it regionbased so nobody is locked out of their primetime as well. But the real solution is to not pretend like a grind event is competitive and actually put work towards implementing ingame tournaments, a meaningfully rated ladder and other features that would help MD be more than a simple simulator.

[@lildevin16]

That would mean actual work. We all know Konami not doing that every game the have released themselves have been half cooked while they make PlayStation pay to creat it to one keep it exclusive but also not put in work at all.

[@r3zaful]

@@lildevin16 that is dumb, creating another xbox nation case where eu players only meet with eu players under region lock break time, like sure joshua have to compete with 1000 eu players while im playing in asia dealing with 100k players, no that is not fair, go work your ass off if you want to win, no easy path.

[@OGamelon]

​@@r3zaful pick a better spawn point next time bozo

[@TheMicu1000]

@@r3zaful make it so you set what your lockout period is, easy peasy solution and you don't have to gatekeep poor life choices lol

[@Kumo-s6f]

Me covered in millions of cockroaches: "Sorry, I don't see the problem here."

[@Ahamkeira]

- Asmogold probably

[@cherryb0ng]

A few things that are worth mentioning about Pokémon showdown laddering to this discussion: In these ladders there is a mechanism that actively tries to avoid pairing players of vastly different elos against each other, even if there aren't that many players available (as is with the case in Gen2ou). Essentially there is a timer which, if it progresses, it widens the differential of elo a player can have to pair up with you, until eventually after a very long time you can pair up the 1000 elo player with the 2200 elo player.

[@Sebastian-fh8xm]

I remember grinding like 3 days with no sleep for KC Cup (i think it was called?) in Duel Links, only to get #11 in the end :( i think a lot of players in the top positions ended up getting banned for account sharing aswell because they basically did shifts with multiple people for the cup. actual insanity

[@vovinia]

I fell asleep on the stairs of my house during the last like twenty minutes of the first Kaiba cup and almost dropped out of top 100. Bandit Keith Relinquished for life.

[@Sebastian-fh8xm]

@@vovinia i think for me it was destiny draw koaki meiru, loved that deck

[@SomniaCE]

Konami choosing the actual worst method imaginable is so funny

[@DiogenesTheCynic.]

I played in the first two KC Cups of Duel Links back in the day, I absolutely hated this grind and stopped playing Duel Links and YuGiOh as a whole for years. I started playing Master Duel last month and watching the Duelist Cup stuff gave me a vietnam flash back.

[@MarkThePage]

I was so utterly speechless when I saw that Master Duel would be keeping the same system as Duel Links...

[@edwiinandresmosqueramarulanda]

Pls don't do that to yourself again

[@OverlordStanley]

This why the game shouldn’t be played seriously at all anymore…you have to literally sacrifice yourself for the Komoney overlords for basically nothing for their entertainment. Do yourself a favor just have fun there is nothing in this game as a “reward” that is worth this amount of grind or suffering

[@schmekki]

Amen

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

Real life inscryption 😂

[@JediLuisVera]

It's really just bragging rights at this point. Which, I mean... that does matter a lot to some people. Paper yugioh also seems to be the most expensive out of the big three tcg franchises. All that investment for no real prizing. Would it be legal for grassroots tourneys to just popup and offer greater incentives? I guess you couldn't stream it on twitch, because of Konami?

[@r3zaful]

Those chinese players join dc and topped expecting nothing in return except online clout, like can you all just enjoy the game? Lets not forget eu and na barely fund the game as konami major revenue stream is cn and jp, cn isnt even able to join world championship. complain to max, yet spend less have a little shame and awareness that chinese players probably using jp or english client because md int official in china. You all will start bitching from the start if the cliant was locked in japanese guaranteed, so weak.

[@higherground9120]

This was an amazing video! Thank you for the work you have put into it.

[@OutOfCharacters]

Thanks so much, I really appreciate it!

[@benji-menji]

I'm pretty sure whoever made the 1K point minimum is a game designer who doesn't know how Elo works that wanted players to feel good through winning with high returns and low risk. This makes sense when it comes to ranked or casual modes so that a player feels like they are making progress and engadges with the game more. However, with high stakes as a world tournney on the line instead of empty bragging rights, then you get the sleepless nights and findings in this video. If you are a game designer, use this as an example of why your job holds more weight than you think.

[@XenithShadow]

Was gonna say the 1000 per win was super high in general. Which is probaly is when every starts at 0. Also it barely lower than the 1200 lose cap. A cap which seems to rarely be reached anyway. Which implies that 1000 is quick close to the effective cap on points obtainable from a win. It's not an ego system it's an activeness tracker that very minerly benefits beating stronger players.

[@tjaremertens1464]

Its intentional. There is no shot this is goging on multiple times and Konami never looked into it. Its just melious Design to keep people playing. They even have a normal elo System but actively choosing to use this instead.

[@benji-menji]

@@tjaremertens1464 Sounds about right. For all I know we could be in the age where the clients actually know how to design games and are able to do stupid stuff like this. Or they could have cut most of the game designers and have no one to say how unhealthy this is.

[@PiePie453]

Insane voice choice for DBGrinder

[@juniorthethird08]

Playing YGO competitively in any format is Human Rights Violation when you consider the prizing.

[@renaldyhaen]

Great analysis video! I have a lot to say after watching it, and I hope I can keep this brief: 1. About "Skillful format" : I’m not trying to underestimate Pro, but based on your analysis, it’s clear the Duelist Cup (DC) isn’t as skill-focused as it seems. From my perspective, the reason the same names appear at the top is because the grind-heavy system favors those who dedicate their lives to Yu-Gi-Oh!. Players like Joshua or Jesse are full-time content creators, so they have the time to grind. Plus, the "+1000 points" theory makes the system even more unbalanced. 2. Alternative for World Tickets: I’d actually prefer something like a Challenger Cup across different regions, where only players with 1700+ Rated Points or higher can enter. This would feel more like a proper competitive event. 3. Solo to Team Transition: Grinding solo to earn a spot in Worlds, only to compete there as a team, is peak comedy. Add to that the way the World Tournament is managed-it’s practically a circus. 4. Did I spell “ELO” wrong? 5. Point Distribution Flaws: Speaking of the +1000 point system, Konami should have seen the flaws in their system from the very first DC. Remember the "XBOX Country" drama? Somehow, a player from there racked up insane points farming against low-skill opponents or bots. This wouldn’t happen with a proper ELO system. But maybe “learning” is a forbidden skill in Konami’s office. 6. Why the System Won’t Change: From a business perspective, the Duelist Cup is too good for Konami. It’s a low-effort “big” event that doesn’t require much budget for prizes or manpower. Plus, it massively increases the game’s playtime stats, which looks great to investors and sponsors. 7. Conclusion: Honestly, I don’t care what others think (I’ve yet to hear a strong argument defending the DC). For me, the Duelist Cup is garbage.

[@OutOfCharacters]

@@renaldyhaen you are spelling Elo wrong but I'll let you off the hook this time because the rest of this comment is so good. Thanks for watching!

[@Nifroth]

lol, hiya Renaldy 👋 The reason for the GERA xbox situation was because konami left the option to turn off crossplay on xbox. The player-base on said platform was and I would assume still is a lot more casual and likely overall smaller as well, thus making the concern of more balanced matchmaking a real issue. Idk if this example require a point distribution change as much as the implemented "cross play off" feature being disabled for DC/RRQ. As for the 1st bullet-point - I think it's unneeded to doubt the skill aspect of this format. It's 100% there. The skill required to navigate the matches in any given cup depends on the skill in that format itself. I do agree though that a big part for why there are so many repeated top 100 names over the different cups is fully tied with the other requirements for DC - having some amount of time to grind + having the mental fortitude to play a massive number of games + having the mental strength to not get tilted from streaks of bad luck. (if the goal is top 1 time might be more dire, but it also depends as I know of a couple cases of KC cups being won with good rest + time to spare on day 3) I also fully agree that overall it's unfortunate that the only way to qualify for worlds in MD/DL is through this specific format, which is for various reasons (time, mental, skillset) not everyone's cup of tea. Abolishing it seems unneeded since there is an active audience for it and again, I think it does show a decent amount of skill filtering, but having other options such as structured tournaments would be neat.

[@renaldyhaen]

​@@Nifroth 1. About GERA, yeah, I’m aware. If Konami used a proper Elo system, he wouldn’t have made it to the top ranks. In a balanced system, as his points got higher, he’d earn less and less from playing low-ranked opponents in "XBOX Country." To rack up enough points for the top rank, he’d have to compete against high-ranked players from outside his region. 2. Skill matters, sure, but Duelist Cup’s grindy, battle-royale format allows too many non-skill factors to dominate. First, it favors people who dedicate their lives to Yu-Gi-Oh!, like streamers or content creators. Second, as shown in the video, the point system isn’t fair-you can still gain a lot of points from beating weaker players. Third, it’s clear that luck can play too big a role. For example, Most of Joshua Schmidt lost because of a brick. Yu-Gi-Oh! is supposed to be a strategy game, not an endurance test. The focus should be on strategy since that’s what ultimately wins tournaments, not how long you can grind. 3. Region-based qualifiers are pretty standard in sports and other competitive games. But to pull it off properly, Konami would need to make a much bigger investment. 4. As for whether there’s really an "active audience" for this system, it’s hard to say. Right now, Duelist Cup is the only option we’ve got, so naturally, people participate. To really judge its popularity, we’d need to see an alternative system to compare it with. 5. That said, I doubt Konami will ever ditch the Duelist Cup. It’s easy to run and hugely profitable for them.

[@Nifroth]

@@renaldyhaen Reply to #2 The whole point is though - outside of a scenario like isolated matchmaking being limited to xbox only, your opponents will be within your point range. There is a noticeable difference in opponent quality between 5k points and 50k points. I think a decent way of observing this is doing a small climb attempt on day 3, where your opponents at the bottom will usually be approaching the game super casually hence why they are at the bottom (just doing dailies, etc). Then you start entering the range of people who haven not managed to climb to serious points (usually either off-meta deck picks or struggling to pilot their deck), and then at around 30/40k your opponents will probably start playing well fairly consistently. I also don't really see how the last bit really applies here "Most of Joshua Schmidt lost because of a brick. Yu-Gi-Oh! is supposed to be a strategy game, not an endurance test. The focus should be on strategy since that’s what ultimately wins tournaments, not how long you can grind." Tournament results are very much influenced by bricking and various rng aspects as well? If anything the argument that a lot of people will quote holds true to offset this. The argument being - more games will help you balance out the rng. The strategic aspect is also not lost since for a tournament you make your deck decisions ahead of time, in the KC format you have to adjust in real time as the ladder shifts, so I don't think I agree with this take. For the record, I am also not really a fan of this format, lol. Just wanted to yap about it a bit T_T I think the Duelist cup is very deceptive for a lot of people. It seems like just playing a lot will let them do well, but honestly (from what I've seen) having a good amount of prep before the event is hugely important if your goal is top 10. It certainly pushes people towards unhealthy decisions

[@immegumin7436]

Actually I know GERA. He is a very decent player but he abused the crossplay off system so badly. He still does in ranked btw. And in Master Rank are so few XBOX players that he even sometimes wintrades with a 2nd acc bcs he has more than one XBOX.

[@krintastic]

Love the Smogon comparison and obvious personal experience

[@breadbowl22]

great video! god looking at josh getting more and more visibly tired in the clips from the last days is really unsettling

[@hasmond6808]

23:50 I know you're saying "Elo rules" but it sounds like you're saying "evil rules" which is very fitting.

[@Ulquiorra_Cifer]

they should have made a limit on how many games you are allowed to play in duelist cup, an 80% wr player will still be ranked much much lower than a 52% wr player that plays a lot more

[@fnot804]

This reminds me of how MTG implemented player rating. They had(have?) a bug in Elo system, where you basically always played against your own rating, no matter what rating the opponent had. Just some formula error. I dont remember the exact details, but I think it meant that you had no upper cap on rating, you can always climb as if you play against strong opponents, so climbing a ladder was all about how many games you play. I dont think you needed crazy grind to get into tournaments (even if they simply sell tickets for tryouts) but if someone wanted to get #1, it was practically impossible unless you spend a lot of time and win a lot. Crokeys, mtg streamer, had like 90% winrate over 50 games in a row, and still had no changes to his position, around top 20 position, but a single win could push him a few positions up. And while playing near top 3, he could win a few games in a row and still lose position, because someone else was also grinding and it pushed him down.

[@TheEmilyba]

Amazing Josh Wojack

[@socalkylex]

One of the greatest titles ever for a KZbin video

[@doctorfishi2260]

Bro grinded even more than the people he talked about💀 I subbed

[@erichitchens6749]

The dedication to actually comb through his full stream just to record the points is wild, bravo

[@ZXZZ66_]

I Played the first master duel duelist cup for hours straight since i have nothing to do anyway.... Having good win rate ratio, i quickly climbed the rank and iirc i reach 20+. Went to sleep, like a normal person i am, only to realized i suddenly ended in bottom rank, bruh

[@bobbybero7452]

Seems crazy!

[@egoalter1276]

They are using some quiet odd scoring system then, because playing more games shouldnt significantly increase your Elo number. You take points from your opponent based on the existing gap between your numbers, so beating people below you should do nothing, and beating those above you consistently should fairly quickly equilibrate.

[@nachohangover5104]

​@@egoalter1276As the video says, the problem is the +1000 point minimum for winning.

[@Ani_Cheese]

Another much smaller factor that I don't think was really touched on was the possibility of having to adapt to slight changes in the decks being played for a given DC (I'm going to use a KC Cup as reference since that's my much preferred format, but I don't imagine it impacts much). There was a semi-recent KC Cup where the most played deck for the event was changing by the day which mattered quite a bit since certain techs/decks that were good against the best day 1 deck wouldn't be as good for the day 2 best deck. This meant that in addition to the various issues of fatigue and grinding the players aiming for the top had to adapt on the spot to developments occurring in that small window of time, less they risk running into more bad match-ups or wish they were running the better techs after losing a good bit of progress. Also, great video and your channel seems right up my alley. Looking forward to future content.

[@AshleyoftheSwiftspear-pb8cs]

I haven’t played duel links in quite a while, but weren’t the cases where one deck was good day one and another day two caused by new cards suddenly being dropped midway through the cup?

[@Ani_Cheese]

@AshleyoftheSwiftspear-pb8cs Some of them I'm sure, wouldn't surprise me quite frankly, but that's not what I was referring to. Rather I was referring to the KC Cup shortly after Lyrilusc release. Lyri was expected to be the best deck day of the event and what had a good match-up into Lyri? Star Seraph. Eventually Star Seraph became the most played deck by day 2 and what had a good match-up into Star Seraph? Sky Striker.

[@Ani_Cheese]

@@AshleyoftheSwiftspear-pb8cs Probably did happen, but I meant the KC Cup shortly after Lyrilusc release. Lyri was expected to be best deck day 1 of the event and Star Seraph had a good match-up into Lyrilusc allowing it to overtake as the popular deck by day 2. Due to this people would shift to Sky Striker as while it had a bad match-up into Lyrilusc it had a really good match-up into Star Seraph allowing it to take more presence during the final day.

[@AshleyoftheSwiftspear-pb8cs]

@ genuinely insane wtf

[@artrix5092]

Good job inducing subtitled for the video. Also, maybe done put those little notes you make (like the one about essays for bricked hands) at the bottom of the screen as the subtitles tend to cover them up.

[@OutOfCharacters]

@@artrix5092 ahhhh, you're so right. I'll have to figure out a different layout for that kind of stuff. thanks for watching!

[@raymoo8504]

joshua schmidt wojak

[@egoalter1276]

A tournament allowing for an infinite number of round robin games to infinitely accrew more qualifying points is very unusual. They could just use Elo which is largely agnostic to number of games played. Or they could just have a fixed number round robin leading into a proper single elimination bracket the bext day.

[@Ragnarok540]

The thumbnail is actually the photo on Schmidt after losing to Yubel in the top cut of YCS Anaheim.

[@julian954]

very glad this video hit recommended. Fantastic video, instant sub.

[@davidserati6882]

Great video! The work you put into it really shows. I came from Farfa's react vid but didn't want to have the view be leeched so I'm liking, commenting, and subscribing. Keep up the good work!!

[@Ry-gt2by]

This was an AWESOME video. I love seeing the analytic side of games like this, so this was incredibly interesting.

[@neroatlas]

Rhythm Game Tiering: TCG Edition. (Thanks for the video, awareness about this kind of stuff is useful!)

[@lifequality]

What I hate about this is that Josh is most of the time still being the strong-minded individual that says: “Everything is fine, Konami is doing a great job, the metagame is great, the systems are great.” If highly respect Josh. But sometimes I wish he would call out Konami for some of their BS they are doing and have been doing. Because he has the potential influence to get Konami employees at a table discussions possible improvements.

[@bobbybero7452]

Konami usually absorbs their players and not the other way around. It’s very rare when they listen to others.

[@nicolasturetta7959]

Ngl didn't expected the Blunder 0-6 from lead g-darm on a DC cup video, but i'm down for it shiest

[@alberthcuayla1587]

Excellent video, I personally would assume that the KC cup and Master Duel work that way, just to inflate more the usage graph of both MD and DL.

[@bxnjo]

They've been using this disgusting format since they started running the Duel Links events into Worlds. It's honestly disgusting that its still being run in this format.

[@nachohangover5104]

Is Konami being malicious, incompetent, or both? Place your bets!

[@astupidlylongnamethatstoolong]

@@nachohangover5104 Its konami, so I dont think they're aware they're doing both. But still is.

[@Kaiyuni]

I think the best thing they could do is have it be set in stages where you have a set number of games and you need to win a certain number of those games to advance to the next stage. This is how MTGA handled it so we know it works well. For example, let's say you are on week 1. You are given 7 games to play and are told you need to win 5 out of those 7 games to advance to the next week. And once you have your 5 wins or 3 losses (in any combination of games) you're done for that stage, which could be over 3 days. You can continue playing to try and knock out potential competitors because it's in your best interest that they lose and fail the stage. You then go to the next stage where it asks you to do the same thing. Win 5 or you're out. Let's assume you win again and move onto a theoretical stage 3. By this point a VAST MAJORITY of the playerbase is out of the tournament, statistically speaking. The stages from here should be 4 out of 7 wins (still greater than 50%) because you're already playing against the best of the best and pulling anything above a 50% win rate is really good. I'm not running the numbers as I write this or anything, but I think only 1 or 2 more stages are needed at this point until you have a top 16 or so players.

[@TheTomac]

Gee, maybe konami isnt the best at making decisions regarding the health of its players and franchises for that matter, or something.

[@RedMage8BT]

I find it incredibly frustrating and tiring just to make the top 10,000. I did it once and then never again. I can't even imagine putting myself through this.

[@bobbybero7452]

How much effort did you have to put into it to get in the top 10,000 and get the bronze title? I’m considering doing it for this upcoming duelist cup but I’m not sure if it is worth it.

[@RedMage8BT]

@bobbybero7452 not a crazy amount but more than I wanted to that's for sure

[@bobbybero7452]

@@RedMage8BT Thanks for the info! I’ll keep that in mind 😃👍🏻

[@iriswav7379]

There should be resting periods at least on these types of tournaments

[@iriswav7379]

It's not much but it shouldn't be hard to implement

[@cryomancer2768]

@@iriswav7379 what's the basis of the resting period? NA, Asia, Europe primetime

[@iriswav7379]

@@cryomancer2768 not sure bro

[@nachohangover5104]

​@@cryomancer2768Could just force a rest period after X hours of playtime. Plenty of games do that.

[@Ice_Icemb]

@@cryomancer2768you could also just do a lockout system, where playing a certain number of hours then locks you out for 8 hours.

[@Zachpi]

I was kind of nodding along with the early parts of the video, but wow, its shocking that smogon has this figured out so much better, and how weird and imbalanced the elo in dc cup really is. It may have taken a lot of time,but at least the work you put into the video really ahows, great stuff man.

[@bribotran6121]

As a yugioh player i love this as a yugioh video but frankly i think you have so much talent and so much reach. You have a pretty good ediing style and this was such a good witty premise i feel you could really branch out.

[@emred4653]

wonderful video that shows how crazy the grind was. Also is that a homestuck talk sprite

[@mitchellbartholomew4976]

I think its cool to have people attend by invitation. Its up to the qualifer to decide if they want friends or good duelists, and there are lots of good duelists that dont qualify, so we get to see good matches from skilled players we might not otherwise see. I am also assuming the logistics of having only the qualifiers team up is a knightmare, and that deciding the teams for the players would lead to disactisfaction of the players.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Why would there be teams for a game that does not support team play?

[@mitchellbartholomew4976]

@ I don’t understand what you mean. Master duel worlds is a team tournament

[@camilomarchesi1793]

Not only that this game is garbo 15 minutes per turn . The perfect game to fall asleep to . People are crazy

[@bobbybero7452]

Tell me about it

[@TheFoxClaws]

The first Elo system I saw was in DOTA 2. Early on, seeing the top streamers carry their teams on their back just to earn a +0 was one of the funniest moments in time for that game. I think the system was changed at some point, but that was after I already quit

[@EMBLER]

Schmidtjack is crazy work

[@FawkeyKC]

It's not just the cups, the ladder too is too time consuming. In order to make progress month after month at climbing to the top, you are forced to win 40 duels a month, and that's only if they're in a row, because in case of losses the number gets higher and higher. That's playing every day for a month at least 2 duels, and if you lose one (probable since all it takes is to lose the coin toss nowadays) it becomes having to play 4, and so on and so on. If you're lucky, you'll get to finish the duel in a few turns, but what if the duel lasts 20 minutes with back and forth from the players, and that with no guarantee of a win? Who has time to play 4-8 duels every day? And what if you skip a day, because you're too busy or don't feel like playing Yu-Gi-Oh! that day? Then the number for the next day compounds and it becomes double. They have created a crazy system. Why couldn't it be 2 wins in a row to go up a tier? In that case you'd only need 20 duels a month to make progress, which is a reasonable amount of duels a month to play. Who cares enough to play Yu-Gi-Oh! every day for at least an hour on average, other than completely obsessed people?

[@HOLYVEXZEL]

I like that so many channels use Sonic Music.

[@bobbybero7452]

Rouge she’s sexy and smooth

[@guyinaroom7771]

It's fascinating to see such an immense degree of incompetency for an event this big

[@cherryb0ng]

I'm tired just watching this. That's insane how this works

[@lilyq1024]

Amazing video, I remember grinding the wcq and it really incentivizes you to not take care of yourself or have a life for the weekend. I would grind at night, be lets say top 2k, sleep and im back to top 8k and have to play catchup because i decided sleep was a good choice. I do hope i could make it to top 100 someday tho

[@enderkatze6129]

Someone should invite a total newbie Player For the 3v3 thing

[@daviddaritan]

Instead of Smogon's OLT, while we're comparing to Pokemon, better comparison to Duelist Cup would be the system of Players Cup implemented by The Pokemon Company International during pandemic. Players received 50 keys to be used to play BO1, 8 Player Single Elimination In-game tournament to collect points throughout couple of weeks, and then Top 128 (for NA/EU/LA) or Top64 (for OC) will play Qualifier Final to determine who qualifies to the Players Cup Global Finals. This way, this stopped players to grind excessively, but the sample size is still large enough so that luck doesn't matter too much.

[@niwoh]

Sleeping 9h in 3 days? Welp, time to get back into polyphasic sleep, I used to do 2.5-3h per day on a 1 core +3 nap schedule lol

[@ThatGSguy]

What if, while entering the DC, you are required to enter a timezone. Between midnight and 8am in that timezone you cannot gain points. I imagine people that will place near the top will likely all choose the same time zone even if they don't reside there.

[@elephantNo5]

Konami is trying to silence this video by announcing the release of the banlist

[@MrAnimeFan4Eva]

This sounds scarily like absolute virtue from the first ff online game that people fought that thing for litterally 18 hours plus had people waiting from just doing something for long at your health's expense

[@vreeze33]

There's no cap on number of games per day? That's crazy. I know pokemon (the main video games, not the card game) has some online ladder tournaments, but those have limits on the number of games you can play per day. Something in the range of 15-25. It being a qualifier is even crazier. Having the time to no life just gives a massive advantage. Edit: hadn't gotten to the smogon part yet 😂. I was talking about official tournaments.

[@renbananacatsoup5343]

I think there should be downtime between those 3 days so that players can rest

[@FionSus]

This is fascinating. I used to play a bit of competitive Magic the Gathering around 2015. There, almost everything is done with swiss tournament brackets followed by a cut to single-elimination top-8/16. Qualifiers have a fixed number of rounds. The biggest downside was that with only a small sample size of matches, it was hard to definitively rank players by wins and losses alone. Cutoffs often relied on tiebreakers, which were calculated based on the relative strength of each players' opponents. If you beat someone in round 1 who went 12-1, you'd have much better tiebreakers than a player who won round one against an opponent who'd go on to 0-13. This led to its own brand of brutal anxiety, because only *some* 9-3 players would make the cut, depending on factors outside their control. This also made tournament byes (rewarded for placing well in previous events) incredibly powerful; not only did you count as winning that first round or two, they couldn't count against you for tiebreakers. With two round byes, you were always matched up with strong players with 2-0 records. You'd have much better odds of having good tiebreakers over the event (and dodge a lot of rogue decks besides).

[@zcarlettt]

Hi! Competitive mons player here. Typically ladder tours require new alts, as ladder typically isn't played by many of the top players as they value other tournaments more. I don't know how true this is of YuGiOh, but generally speaking I think that giving people an advantage in ladder tours based on how much they care about ladder rather than how good they are at laddering should not be encouraged. To clarify what I mean here, I would say about ~3/5 OLT qualifying players don't seriously play ladder outside of OLT, but have great pokemon fundamentals that it doesn't matter. If we use pre-existing accounts, we are giving an advantage to the people who bothered to climb ahead of time in what is supposed to be an event that takes place in an alotted time. This is also why different ladder alts are needed for each new cycle, as everyone starting at the bottom. If anything, this would make the game grindier

[@johndoe9343]

Well, I for one am glad you took the time to meticulously track the Duelist Cup points.

[@SaucyXxByn]

So you’re telling me if I wanna be a DC Champ I just need to grind for 3days straight risk my health and safety and not just play the game casually

[@CrimVulgar]

The people who experienced the 72 hour grind looked to solutions other than fixing the scoring, and to me that points to an issue in assuming that people who are good at something know how to make it better. As a complete layman, I assumed limiting time or game-count would work, but as soon as you started scrolling down the spreadsheet at 16:56 I knew exactly what the problem was. Note: there's nothing requiring that they can't have a 2nd layer to the qualifying that takes the top 8/16/32 players from the ladder and has them play each other to qualify for the top spots, but that requires a lot more work than setting up a mode and walking away for 3 days.

[@Gravitysonic0]

Banger thumbnail. Nice work

[@alexspeedwagon3701]

As a primarily magic player with a passing interest in retro yugioh, please wizards never do anything like this on arena. This sounds awful

[@idlegameplayer3756]

i didn't realize "wizards" in this context was referring to wizards of the coast so i thought you were just appealing to a group of spellcasters to not force magic the gathering players to do this

[@Tinussian]

Did not expect to see the blunder 6-0ed by lead galar darmanitan in this vid LMAO what an agency classic

[@mobgabriel1767]

"he fell asleep during the games" isnt this literally what happened in the odion vs joey and joey vs marik duels in duel monsters?

[@scooter9537]

insane that i clicked on this video and saw blunder get shamoned by garm

[@directionlessriddle]

I regret to inform everyone bearing the same curse as me that I have been jumpscared by the video's creator using a strangely familiar style of a sprite for talking, a talksprite of sorts, if you will.

[@KrytenB]

don't know or care about yugioh but im gonna watch the whole vid bc it's so well done! fantastic pacing and editing with a well written script to boot

[@TheOfficialRandomGuy]

Unless you’re jobless, and jacked up on adderall. It’s never worth the grind.

[@bobbybero7452]

But that Nintendo switch and the bragging rights

[@darkshifter3656]

Oh nah I just earn my gems and bounce for the next special event, no way I'm doing anymore than that

[@bobbybero7452]

Did you ever get that Bronze icon?

[@swaerd3264]

I don't know a fuckin' thing about Yu Gi Oh aside from watching it as a kid but this was a really interesting dip to take. Thanks for the effort! Well explained.

[@Malao558]

It’s always nice to see videos this well put together from smaller channels. It’s hard out there for the little guy, and making any kind of video takes a lot of work. Keep it up!

[@vonBelfry]

Nah, if there's any amount of taking advantage of other players sleeping, it's not a "skilled format" as much as it is a speedrun to the "play now" button.

[@alfonso9805]

What really is a violation of human rights is the Master Duel Coin System, where we're in a 1:1 format and it's unfair lose the coin most of the time, such as 5 or more times in a row >:u

[@TheGabbernaut]

Didn't expect to be hit with Homestuck right off the bat in this video

[@jacal5179]

That earthquake crit soundbyte is one of the funniest things I have ever heard 😂

[@AA40002]

This video is exactly why I hit duelist level 20 (usually) stopping shortly after, I don't have fun sacrificing health for a card game and neither should you!

[@lrialthedreamer2276]

I don't have up front experience with this but the way this is being framed reminds me of the grinding you have to do in some rhythm gacha games. Specifically the one I have experience on is Project Sekai, where people would go on and play for 7 days in order to rank high in an event. There's no physical reward for it, it is the pure sacrifice people do for the characters in the game. Where people do math, spend money to get the best teams, and play with 4 other people in shifts that goes upward to 22 hours a day. Watching this made me realize that grinds like that isn't as common outside of these games, It is bad, like so bad people gotten hospitalized bad. But the community always choke it up to the fact people are willing to go through it even tho you don't get anything in return physically and financially

[@AshRaf-to5gu]

Konami not caring about human rights? Yep sounds about right.

[@nachohangover5104]

They way they treat their players be just like how they treat their employees.

[@TURBO1000YuGiOh]

9:40 🤣🤣"I could qualify for OLT just using the allotted screen time I had when I was 10"

[@frosthoe]

When I was going pro in motocrossI worked out two times a day each session was 2 hrs long. Morning and then again late afternoon. Between 10am and 2pm I was at the practice track training. Then eat , nap, and head to second workout. If I woke up at 2am stressed Id go for a ten mile run to relax. I had to consume 7000 calories a day to gain any weight. and weighed about 165-175 in competition. My normal weight is about 145 now. Anyway Thats what it took to touch the glass ceiling and break thru to pro. Anything less and you were a lap behind. People just dont understand how far we would go for success... I broke my tibia and raced 3 more heats and a main on a broken leg so i would still make points. This is what it takes to win. Skill is not enough. You have to become automatic and instantaneous! And you have to be able to run harder and longer then you ever believed possible. Thats how you win nowadays. GRIND

[@pascalsimioli6777]

Ain't no way you can do so much research and still be at 2k subs. I don't even play ygo anymore (I actively hate it) but you deserve the sub.

[@SylvesterAshcroft88]

I think the most time i spent grinding in a single player game was Melee, but since multiplayer games have basically become live service machines, it's insane how much time you have to put it, that you're basically on par with a LoL player, which is already soul destroying. I'm also surprised people haven't managed to abuse this format, by running statistics of drawing certain cards etc. or running simulations of FTK's.