RULEBOOKS!(Seven Deadly TCG Sins Followup[ #6)

[@jonathantillian6528]

You want a card game with a bad rulebook, look at Towers in Time. It was _purposely packaged_ with *no rulebook.* Instead you had to call a pay-by-minute number and get the game's rules. Another horrible thing to do is try and print a huge rulebook in teeny tiny print so it fits on a single card (Arcadia) or slim rulebook (Mythos).

[@timmirkes7178]

They actually had the rulebooks for Towers shrink wrapped to the starter display boxes, and the retailer had to remember to give you one. A printing issue resulted in a book too big to fit into the starter deck boxes, so that was their solution. *shrug* Not that the rule book was clear enough to get you playing without a serious investment of time anyway. A year or two ago I scoured the internet to figure out how to actually play; it's a fun game, and actually quite innovative for its time, but yeah that rulebook...yikes.

[@MK-dr7dx]

Wow, that is the definition of scummy.

[@theoneandonly6112]

What about a “7 heavenly virtues of trading card games” series?

[@ebonysoldier]

Hell yeah!... Wait... HEAVEN YEAH!

[@Woynich]

He has said in the past he will never do a “Ten Commandments of Trading Card Games”… immediately before saying the first one would be, “Thou Shalt Not Mess With The Rare Slot.”

[@rmt3589]

Would love this so much!!!

[@AwesomeMoss]

as someone who adores many card games and has a sizable collection of cards from probably over 60 or 70 games and plan to collect more i must say i really really enjoy that you make videos about card games in general instead of just one like most other channels. you Seven Deadly Sins series introduced me to an absolutlely amazing channel. i really hope you intend to do more series like the SIns series. in fact i like your channel so much ive considered starting my own channel that follows a similar formula and range of topics that yours do. i really do hope you continue to make such amazing content like this.

[@CalastantNight]

I'm glad you brought this up. It's interesting how many game designers there are who forget to tell their players how to win. I've been to too many game design groups where even that simple question is difficult for them to answer. There have been many times where there was no way to reasonably end the game.

[@JCFJ007]

-"You don't really move cards around in yugioh" Meknights-"Allow us to introduce ourselves"

[@justanoman6497]

And that is why you don't put those in a starter deck. Nor pendulums Nor anything that deals with extra deck. Heck, I might even avoid ritual altogether. And no banishes. And no hand traps. And no optional secondary effects (which can cause issues with timing, I mean it's kind of fine for player to play the game slightly wrong as a result of their inclusion but... let's not) Honestly, the best intro into the game is still the starter deck of ancient past. Just enough info, nothing that interact with each other weirdly. Not even excessive amount of search effects which can confuse players (it's hard to make a choice when you are unfamiliar with the choices). And, despite all the rule changes since, nothing really changed about the ways the "basics" interact with each other. "Modern" starter/structure, in the hope of being the slightest bit viable(isn't really remotely competitive but...) started including way too many complicated interactions. I mean sure, those are important if you ever reach competitive level, even that of local level, but that's not where you start.

[@justanoman6497]

​@IvyBansXI Not every new player have the patience to sit through a hour long lecture. Most people want to start playing in 5 to 10 min, which just isn't enough time to introduce all those mechanics. Ideally there should be a starter set with a series of decks which each introduce more mechanic and with increasing amount of reading. But whereas this is easy to do for digital games (and they do, in fact, do just that) it is quite a bit more difficult for physical card games. I mean the rule book should include every little detail, but the first pages of the book should describe the simple game that can be played with the starter deck to try out the general flow of the game. Edit: to clarify, the problem isn't with how easy/hard it is, but how tedious it is. Each mechanic/component is certainly easy enough to understand. But doing a LOT of simple task is still very time consuming. And also the length of card text. Many modern cards are multi and conditional effect. Each is an easily 20s to a min read in and of itself. And, as they often reference other card and/or require combination with certain other cards in certain way to work properly, reading as you draw is not the best. When you are allowed to do a search, it is actually important for you to know ALL the options and what they each provide by their searches. I.e., read the whole deck. And the modern deck can easily be a 10-20 min read each. It's certainly not hard to read, but it is tedious. A new player (or hopefully soon to be one) is generally not sufficiently invested in the game to spend a hour reading the rule book, 20 min on the deck it came with and then probably a min or two per turn on their opponent's cards. And also, you know, when playing with complex and thus high skill ceiling decks, even of similar power, the newer player will likely be curb stomped due to "bad plays"(generally choosing the wrong card in a search or chain their of).

[@baileydombroskie3046]

@@justanoman6497 agreed. Im truly dissappointed that konami has no official rulebook or website that u can use to learn all the rules. In order to learn to learn all the rules a person has to go thru dozens of 10+min vids on youtube to even have a decent comprehention. It takes 20 frickin minutes to properly teach someone the priority and fast effect timing chart. Which is luckily on the official konami website.

[@justanoman6497]

@@baileydombroskie3046 There used to be a rule book with every structure/starter deck that covers pretty well. It doesn't cover more finicky stuff like timing on optional effect and priority but good enough, in that you are unlikely to need to deal with those in your first couple games. I haven't bought one in a long time so I dunno if that's still a thing. The problem with modern cards is that the simple rule book is just not enough anymore now that they've added so much more into the game and every other card they print have some convoluted conditional AND optional effect and response thereof that you actually need the more complex and detailed breakdown of rules to use/play against them. I mean I didn't know what priority is until I was like 6 month into the game... 15 years ago and honestly it didn't really affect play much. But now, you kinda have to know because the game is just so much faster and disruption based, and half of the cards won't work right if you don't. I reckon they just didn't keep up the pace with updating the rule book compared to the rate that they are one-upping themselves in the powercreeping of the cards in order to sell more packs.

[@baileydombroskie3046]

@@justanoman6497 ya thats sorta how things r going. The rulebooks for all the starter and sctructure decks havent changed sence the introduction of mr4 except for 1 thing. Being able to summon xyz, synchro, and fusion monsters in mr5. And the only difference between the link era, pendulum era, xyz era, and synchro era rulebooks, other then the pendulum zones and extra monster zones is the added rules (obviously very basic rules and not quite enuf) of the new summoning mechanic. They never added any other rulings tied to these summoning mechanics in and all that.

[@pargustavsson712]

former professional yugioh player here: the master rule 4 while widely discussed was a necessary evil because pendulum just powercreeped everything with their ability to resummon all their monsters turn after turn. master rule 5 (revised master rule 4, active from 1 april 2020) unmade some of those changes and allowed synchro, xyz, and fusion to summon as in master rule 3, but pendulum was still restricted to master rule 4.

[@pargustavsson712]

and all of them were atleast tier 1 at some point, which says it all

[@kyounokaien]

@Omar Valentini PePe had to be emergency banned after 3 days

[@angusbeefyeung]

I like master rule 4 cause it makes players actually think to where they should put their monsters.

[@UrshifuYaoi69]

@Omar Valentini The point still stands. Pendulum's core mechanic of just being able to vomit all their monsters out every turn was broken. If pendulum still had MR3 pendulum summoning there would for sure be many more decks like PePe that had to be emergency banned, or that mechanic would hold Konami's design team back so hard out of fear of making to good of pendulum monsters that a pendulum deck wouldn't really be that good ever again. MR4 was needed no matter how you look at it. Also, Metalfoes were tier 1 mostly because of the broken mechanic that is MR3 pendulum summoning.

[@Ms666slayer]

@@kyounokaien It really was 2 weeks buth yeah it got emergency banned

[@brockmckelvey7327]

I think this has been asked, but is there a 7 Heavenly Virtues of TCGs?

[@t4rv0r60]

Number1: diverse formats.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

@@t4rv0r60 aka balanced formats

[@goncaloferreira6429]

1-balanced, well designed formats 2- multiple ways to play the game 3- multiple ways to enjoy the game beyond playing: good art and crediting artist leads to collectability and artist following; compeling storytelling to the reader types and spark discussion and passion 4- easy to learn, hard to master. 5- willingness to change and improve the game 6- having a strong base gameplay idea and theme 7- keep the game afordable ?

[@t4rv0r60]

@@goncaloferreira6429 thats not inherently true tho. take MTGs Commander format, wich isnt balanced at all but its still one of the most popular formats in MTG

[@goncaloferreira6429]

@@t4rv0r60 how do you perceive balance? balance is something you create within all the game pieces you design to make part of a format. commander is not designed and-in my opinion- was better when wizards didnt make cards with it in mind. also, edh can be popular for many reasons. i for instance liked it when it gave my old jank cards a home; to other it is a way to make friends or hang out with them(multiplayer) ; other are just glad to more often find people who they can play using legacy cards; and finally some people just want to see the world burn( screw balance)

[@yifever]

You either have 100 pages of rules explaining the keyword or become yugioh where every card has 5 paragraphs of text explaining what it does.

[@matejlieskovsky9625]

True, but you shouldn't need to read the entire dictionary before playing. And if I recall correctly, MtG does this thing where simpler cards contain reminder text for keywords while the more complicated cards skip reminder text to be concise, arguing that beginners are unlikely to see a lot of rare cards straight away. Alllegedly, a card might not be common even just for this reason. This works oh so much better with digital TCGs where reminder text can be mouse-overed with a computer searching the dictionary for you. You can even use icons instead of words!

[@justanoman6497]

That's why neither of those should exist for starter decks. Starter decks should introduce player by having mostly normal monsters and a handful of simple effect ones and no extra deck stuff. It's not like a player can be remotely competitive early on anyway, so don't even try with all the power-creeped complexity with starter decks. Much better to break them in first before introducing all the crazies. Note, I do say starter decks. Structure is a complete different thing. Though honestly, I do fear that new player buying structures by mistake and goes complete WTF on it. This is also why I kinda feel they should stop selling structure decks, instead selling deck cores that is clearly not a complete deck but contain the essential thematic center piece of the particular archtype in question. People can fill in the rest with common staples etc themselves. I mean it's not like any seasoned player play the structure deck as is anyway(except say matches/tournaments where they play only unmodified structure decks, ofc), we are using them as a core to build around to begin with, removing the junk fillers and replacing them with either duplicate from a second one or staples etc.

[@waltercardcollector]

To be fair, you don't need to know every single keyword to learn to play a game. You can just collect cards and look up the keywords that are on the cards you have or encounter.

[@DXYS95]

Yugioh effects explain what the cards do... But not really? Before that you need to learn the most convoluted and asinine game rules ever. Moreover, the game doesn't have recurrent effects like Flying, Trample and so on (and if it does they are so rare there would be no point in writing keywords). I think Vanguard does a really good job when it comes to teaching the player how effects resolve: costs are clearly stated along with limitations such 1/Turn (once per turn) etc

[@justanoman6497]

@@DXYS95 The irony is, trample happens to be one of the VERY few things that yugioh sort of have a keyword for--piercing. I mean it is not used as a keyword per-say, but it did replace the longer phrasing of difference between atk and def etc etc. On that note, there are a number of sort of keywords in the game, like banish, activate. Alas, you do need to study the rule in detail to know what those thing actually are. I mean, you can guestimate and would be mostly correct, but there are technicalities that you would not normally think about. (There is, for example, a distinct difference between you can only use one xxx effect a turn versus you can only activate one xxx effect a turn).

[@applesthehero]

17:20 worth noting that yugioh has distinct "structure" and "starter" decks you can buy, the latter being targeted to new players. Both of them come with a paper 1-player playmat, but the one in the starter deck usually has the phase order, with a little one line description of each phase, along the top of the mat.

[@lhgs7289]

yeah... but if you had to introduce someone to ygo, you would have them buy structure decks... the starter decks... they are bad introductions in ygo :/

[@applesthehero]

@@lhgs7289 They are kind of a random selection of cards, yeah, but I think the lack of any particular gimmicks or anything like you get with a structure deck makes it a decent introduction to the core rules. On the other hand, being just a random selection of cards with no real archetype or gimmick means it probably won't get a new player interested in the game, and I wouldn't have someone use a starter deck for long, they are a bit boring once you know the core rules.

[@baileydombroskie3046]

Only 1 major problem with the starter and structure decks, the rulebooks in them r borderline useless. They teach u the bare bare basics and thats it. And u cant even learn all the rules on the konami official website. To learn all the rules u have to go ontk youtube and find all the vids talking about and explaining all the rulings and even then some rulings u have to resort to using the yugioh wiki. Its sad really. Theres been soo many rulings that i realised existed or just didnt understand and i had to find them on youtube mostly.

[@applesthehero]

@@baileydombroskie3046 last time I got a starter deck it came with a pretty thick full rulebook. Didn't include the huge number of card-specific edge case rulings, but it was more than enough to know how to play in a casual setting

[@baileydombroskie3046]

@@applesthehero if i recall the yugioh booklet rulebooks in starter/structure decks r around 65-70 pages long and barely have enuf rulings written in them just for duels using the starter and structure decks but any halfway competent deck will show how insufficient it really is.

[@cohenmarioman]

Thankfully Master Rule 4 was overturned so it only applies to Links and Pendulums now in Master Rule 5

[@vivecanada1]

I am glad for those that still play that game. Though now that makes Links kinda look like the unmixable attributes sin. I still look at MR4 and think that as a returning player or if I was a new player I would have seen that, heard how it used to be, and never gotten back into it.

[@cohenmarioman]

@@vivecanada1 prior to MR 5 is made Synchro/Xyz/Fusion more unmixable. In reality Links will still do their link arrows issue similar to how pendulums operate different than the others. The real nerf is to pendulums who are still bound by link arrows for their Extra Deck summons.

[@cohenmarioman]

@@nmr7203 that’s why the “arrows” were used to try and limit it. I think adding back the other Extra Deck summons unlimited potential helps them compete. It’s not like Links disappeared lol

[@haydenz0]

@@nmr7203 no always. Some links have requirements.

[@joshuatran1556]

@@vivecanada1 Links are actually very splashable as they have more generic requirements and there have been links created to deliberately support other mechanics. Most of the best decks at the moment play some combination of links, Synchros, xyz, and the occasional fusion

[@jdb2002]

The Starter set of the Portal expansion in MtG had an interactive partial game. Basically, you set up the first several cards of the decks in a specific order and followed the directions in the rulebook, as it explained the different concepts as you played, then cut you loose to finish the game with the shuffled cards below the set cards.

[@AntonRudenko852]

yeah, that was such a great tutorial. a literal 9 year old me could understand it, and boy was i not the most gifted

[@Arkouchie]

I loved portal, such a good starter kit

[@Realsheepsoft]

Interesting fact about the Yu-Gi-Oh playmat: They used to have the general structure of the turn on the playmats that came with starter/structure decks (just like, 1 sentence for each phase) but I think they stopped doing that once they started making each deck come with a uniquely designed playmat.

[@ich3730]

"uniquely designed playmat" you mean the cheap-ass piece of paper with cheap-ass print of the generic artworks of 3 cards from the deck?

[@Realsheepsoft]

@@ich3730 I never said it was good

[@andreelmatacoronavirusquin1322]

Reminder that masterrule 4 was revised and now link monsters are the only extra deck monsters that abide by the old masterrule 4 rules. Everything else can be summoned to the main monster zone

[@pokenutter]

Doesn't Pendulum Summoning rely on the Extra Zones, too?

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

@@pokenutter I believe so

[@andreelmatacoronavirusquin1322]

@@pokenutter it depends on wether it is being summoned from your hand or your extra deck.

[@DeconvertedMan]

I took a break from pokemon since they have ones that you get three prizes for.. the power creep is just crazy.

[@PlasticSiding]

Glad to see the content coming back regularly, your videos are very genuine and refreshing

[@theXlegend17]

This series is really great for anyone studying game design. Most of these concepts apply to video games and are crucial to consider while designing any game. Great series, I'd love to hear you reviewing a bunch of more obscure card games!

[@andrewboyko8304]

#7 is not having reminder text you say? I didn’t realize we were closing out on cardfight vanguard again. Please toss the tachikaze equip gauge mechanic in there for me.

[@CaptBackwards]

5:19 CORRECTION: Konami has altered the rules slightly from master rules 4 (they basically backpedaling somewhat on the idea) No longer need link monsters to get to the other extra deck monsters You can summon any where (depending on what you are summoning) basically extra deck monsters no longer necessary are required to go the extra deck monster zone. And etc.

[@wally4golly]

No no no. You summon Halqifibrax and proceed to summon 2+ negates.

[@Ms666slayer]

@@wally4golly You dont know how much im waiting for the time that Halqifibrax gets banned, also Linkroos and Union Carrier, those are the cards that allow those broke ass boards. The reason i wnat union carrier band it's that it limits the desing of new Union Monsters, literally Buster lock was not a big problem until Union Carrier was released, i mean Konami can't releas new good Union monsters if Union Carrier literally makes it possible for everyone to use Union mosnteres even if it's not of the archetype.

[@irrespondible]

Specifically, it means that all the Extra Deck Monsters that are FACE DOWN on the Extra Deck can be summoned to a regular monster deck zone, while FACE UP extra deck monsters need the Extra Deck Monster zones (The latter are Pendulum Monsters, as they go face-Up to the extra deck whenever they would end in the graveyard from the field).

[@23bcx]

A year ago or so I wrote rules for a generic TCG, ie a TCG that was about half way between the big three (YGO, MTG, PKM) that was general enough that you could write conversion rules for cards from other games. Didn't test it nearly enough. If anyone wants the rules I can post 'em, if anyone else wants to give the idea a shot go ahead. I think it is something that should exist and I doubt I am the first person to think of this or try to write it.

[@pyredynasty]

This is relevant to my interests. I’ve been working on an rpg system that uses a deck mechanic that I wanted to be able to slot tcg cards into.

[@BaronKrool]

You are not the first person, though the idea of conversion rules is certainly new to me. Not sure that part is possible but I respect the attempt.

[@Stinkoman87]

I did something similar. I made a set of generalized conversion rules that would allow any supported game supported to be mixed with and used against any other supported game. Mostly I did popular games (yugioh, magic, ect) and various dead or nearly dead games I had lying around (dragoborne, force of will, lightseekrs). It's basically my only game design project I have done that I have actually completed.

[@Yous0147]

Conversion rules is a really awesome concept. Especially if you like several kinds of card games.

[@Stinkoman87]

@@Yous0147 Or you like dead card games that no one else plays anymore. Still like Dragoborne? play against someone playing Magic, or Kaijudo.

[@MadDragonify]

Hey Kohdok you likely know of this niche video game already but I think you'd enjoy Culdcept. In three words: Magic Meets Monopoly. The objective is to move around a board amassing mana (money) and hit a certain amount. Every space you land on you can place a monster on to claim and anyone else who lands there must either pay a toll or fight your monster. There's 4 colors with different playstyles and monsters and spells with all kinds of effects, mundane ones like making a monster poisoned or petrifying them to wacky ones like moving monsters across the map and emptying their space to claim. The most recent one was Culdcept Revolt on 3DS but Culdcept Saga on 360 was popular among its crowd too.

[@EpicMTGMusic]

Next sin -> Not expanding your market / international support.

[@brittanynguyen3794]

Cough cough bakugan cough cough

[@EpicMTGMusic]

​@@brittanynguyen3794 Not only. But a lot of card games that choose to sell only in countries sharing their native language, if they're not in Japan, ends up being cancelled. Bakugan has another problem, which is price tag in other countries. But there are examples that were cancelled because they chose not to or when they thought about expanding sales, was too late Like Chaotic (that thought about expanding their market a little too late, while 4kids destroyed the game's hopes and dreams), Force of Will ( which also went a little too late. Still, Force of Will also has another problem, which is too much promo/ high rarity content. This brings a bad secondary market); Kaijudo; Redakai ( ¬¬_ , which, btw, wasn't THE successor of Bakugan, but it was Spin Master's idea to copy Chaotic tcg); And also a lot of 90's TCGs too.

[@empireyouth5791]

Plants versus zombies heroes

[@rhysjonsmusic]

The new digimon cardgame looked like it was going to be another example of this but has very recently announced an English release

[@kaiseremotion854]

ive seen that as somewhat important. but you dont want to pander to your international market and give them special things that are only avaible in the foreign games. such as promo art thats only available in japanese.

[@Kenvie2000]

The person/people with the rules and the person/people with the box is literally how every new board or card game I play with people works. Great observation.

[@joshuatran1556]

Yugioh rolled some of the Master Rule 4 changes back earlier this year with Master Rule 5, which said that Xyz, Synchros, and fusions were no longer restricted to the link mechanic. It was also a check on pendulums, which were a massively overpowered mechanic. Since then they have done a lot of card design around collumn mechanics, which have increased the ability for high level technical play.

[@demonicbunny3po]

I have played a lot of board games, and I think it is safe to say that there are not seven deadly sins. Most of the games that fail hard are due to a combination of art design, rule books, bad game design, and lack of marketing. An ugly game will Garner less attention. A bad rule book will make learning the game difficult and a lot of gamers have so many games available that they have limited patience for learning a new game. Bad game design is just not fun. And if no one knows about your game, you won’t sell it at all. Everything else is negotiable. Lots of components, few components. Plastic, wood, paper. None of this matters.

[@17blaziken]

Look at krosmaster. The thing that killed it the enormous delay of season 3. We waited a full year before set 3 got released, a full year without new promo or special gift at tournament, with the same meta. People just stopped playing because they had everything available and didn't want to spend more money to attend a tournament just to play another game with the same roster of the previous week. Also, quest was interesting but not really good, and season 3 started cycling. Man, what a shame, that game was amazing

[@revimfadli4666]

Lots of components & expensive materials can affect entry costs & convenience though, thus affecting _marketability_ and new players' barrier to entry

[@BramLastname]

Yu-Gi-Oh used to have the turn order on their starter deck fields, However structure decks always assumed you'd use the rulebook provided And at one point they did the same for starter decks

[@riqo456]

I'm willing to bet you might have a sizable amount of rubber/cloth playmats. Would love to see a collection type video talking about the different ones you have and the stories of how you got them.

[@Zeet1]

Pandemic Legacy (season 1 and season 2) have been some of the best board game experiences I've had. Though I dont play many Board Games

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I’ve been binge watching your 7 deadly sins series and loving the whole series. I love the idea of doing a 7 deadly board game sins, I’d be glad to help you out with that if you ever change your mind and decide to do it. On a side note, I’d love to see you cover the old TCG Doom Trooper. It was one of my favorites other than MTG back in the “Wild West” era of TCGs, as you always call it. ;)

[@Closer2Zero]

Last time you talked about Keyforge in reference to its archaic starter set and extra pieces. I looked into the game after and liked it enough t buy some decks. I’d love to hear you talk more about the game, its history to this point, and any other info you have or things you have to say about it based on your experience

[@primovictorian]

Me and my friend tried to make sense of the vanguard rule book. Several KZbin videos later, and we couldn't figure it out.

[@Darthmessiah66]

an idea i had for a series, would be to look at colors and how they fit into TCG's like Pokemon, MGT, Bakugan, and other less popular examples. one episode could be dedicated to the color red, then the following blue, and so on and so on. that is a series that i would find interesting. just an idea though.

[@cephery8482]

‘Orange’ Ok so today we’re talking about entire yugioh decks

[@schwarzerritter5724]

YuGiOh KZbinrs have been doing that for a long time, because archetypes kind of work like colours in Magic the Gathering.

[@1Pandaking]

I don't know if they still have it but Magic: The Gathering had a box set that came with 2 prearranged decks and booklet that walked you through a game of MTG step by step

[@IIxIxIv]

"You can get mansplained about type matchups up to 4 times per game!" had me rolling

[@brockmckelvey7327]

I learned that there's a Pokémon TCG format where you only use the preconstructed (starter?) decks Anyways I have like 20 of them and it's fun to grab random ones and jam them against each other

[@liamjamieson8842]

yeah I enjoy the format a fair bit. It's fun just to play them against each other with friends

[@lawrencetyrpa]

Thank you so much! That's exactly the video I needed to re-watch while working on my rulebook.

[@blaze7goku496]

It was the restrictions on other forms of summons from the extra deck that was the issue they got rid of that earlier this year before it created the feeling that you were forced to play link monsters just to be able to summon synchro, xys or fusion monsters . Some preexisting cards became almost impossible to summon such as shooting quasar dragon because you needed a synchro tuner and two other synchro monsters In order to summon it

[@vladspellbinder]

I, too, put various game pieces into plastic bags to keep them sorted and have gotten my roommate to do the same with his games. It was a habit I picked up from some random guy I played a game with at a convention one time who did it with his game and I thought it was such a great idea. Not every game needs it of course, but for the games that do ~cough FantasyFlight cough~ it tends to make set-up and clean-up a lot easier.

[@clockwise6130]

Also with yugioh MR4, they updated the rules a few months back where they made it so pendulum and link monsters are the only cards that HAVE to go into the extra monster zone. But now fusion, synchro, and xyz can go into the extra monster zone OR the main monster zone, and arent forced to go into the extra monster zone. They did this because they realized that they were forcing player to buy link monsters when the main ideas for previous "expansions" were that if someone didn't want to use the new types of cards they didnt have to.

[@iankernohan3874]

I feel blessed to get another one of these so soon

[@SkylerLinux]

Additionally having a quick start guide and The Rule book, allows Tweedledee and Tweedledum to start playing with more info available as needed. Also if you have a two player Started Deck pack you NEED to have two quick start guides. I hate being the one guy with them and having to make rulings because I placed the one quick start guide down so it's closer to me

[@drakke1489]

YGO starter deck's mats have the turn sequence iirc, the rulebook obv has it with all the info needed to play. Only more advanced info like timing, PSCT (Problem Solving Card Text aka how are cards written and why they are written like that), etc are not on the rulebooks.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

If I remember there's a simplified rulebook with the starter deck/structure decks(I put them together since the main game hasn't had a starter deck since 2018) but Konami has a big PDF online to try and go through most of the rulings since there's a lot for yugioh even with yugioh before 2010 there was missing the timing and so on.

[@quocsat41]

@Kohdok To your future success! Congrats, you're now in show biz more than, a lot of us, would want to be in. Yet, I've enjoyed your series, and want to hear more on your takes on tcg, and even board games, and game design, in general. It'd be fun to see more of your videos pop on my feed, too!

[@BlakeFaeMorton]

A lot of boardgames nowadays have adapted to having just a card with the turn order on it or printed out the turn order on your character. It's not hard to have a card with the turn order and key mechanics on it and I would seriously recommend it for any tabletop game!

[@jonothanthrace1530]

Listing the contents of the box early in the rulebook is also useful for letting new players know if something is missing. "Hey Beavis, where's the blue dice?" "Uh-oh, there's just red and green! That's fucked up!"

[@Warliet]

How to introduce new Players to a card game? Do it like Weiß/Schwarz. Include in each Trial Deck a simple sheet 2 sided printed. First page: How to Win, Explanation of the Cards same for Playmat. Second Page: Turn Order in detail kind of. Even so the playmat itself has the turn order and most important things like how u can attack.

[@WesJFin]

oh man. There should be a rule in game design about The ease of getting Bevis and Butthead able to play your game. What a perfect perfect perfect way to depict that haha

[@PhantomDogman]

For some Yu-Gi-Oh paper playmats there are turn orders on it. Mostly those playmats might come from starter deck. And for some playmats on backside there is statergy(?) guide for deck, this might come from Stucture decks.

[@roanmartin1996]

Another thing, if you are going to have a show surrounding your card game like Chaotic, Redakai, and Bakugon, actually have the characters play the game with the rules. When my brother and I got Redakai cards, we didn't have a clue on how to play it. Yugioh however, we instantly knew how to play it because they actually explained the rules in the show.

[@johnmraz4332]

On master rule 4, pretty sure that changed earlier this year. Now you can play extra monsters anywhere but link monsters can only be placed in the extra zones. So basically you just have an extra place to special summon from the extra deck. See master rule 5 from April this year. So they rolled that back

[@dustyfox6511]

If you're doing no reminder text, later MtG cards are leading into it. If you look at the card "The First Iroan Games" try to figure out what the last ability does. The saga ability has reminder text but what does a gold token do? It's not a keyword and unless you opened a gold token in a booster when it was released or have "King Macar, the Gold-Cursed" (A card from another set that has the reminder text) you're sort of lost.

[@GunbladeKnight]

That was because of space reasons. But Magic still puts reminder text on a lot of things, even putting evergreen reminder text in the last core sets.

[@Joker22593]

It would have been much better if it was a treasure token, which has become the gold token replacement for the past few years. I realize the point of the gold token is that its a "gold medal from the olympics", but I think it's not worth the reference. Or they could have just been using gold tokens the whole time....

[@dustyfox6511]

@@GunbladeKnight still makes it a ability that is technically meaningless without Oracle text as Gold isn't keyworded. Also it's somewhat strange that they returned to gold after realising it was problematic and made treasures instead only to go back to gold for this one card.

[@MegaAlchemist123]

Maybe we could talk about archetypes in tcgs. You know like demons or robots or something like that. And then we can talk about games, that don't have such archetypes. I don't know why, but i want to see a few comparisons between different tcgs and their handling with such archetypes.

[@BaronKrool]

Oh! Reminder text! Perfect example of a game that failed at that is definitely VS System. Very confident it's one of the big issues that killed the game. The saddest part is that the new version (2PCG) is falling into the exact same trap! Like, it's a full LCG now and they actually FORGET to put specific keyword explanations in the rulebook that cards come with, and for some they even forget to PUT IT ON THE WEBSITE. I've had to go to FORUMS to get card explanations. It's absurd!

[@thefaz3744]

Are you going to make more "taking a look at [card game]" for some of the more popular one? More namely YGO, considering it's pretty much massively different from almost all other TCG's

[@rhysjonsmusic]

It would be interesting looking into yugioh considering it breaks alot of the sins in this series

[@thefaz3744]

@@rhysjonsmusic Eh, not really. The only one it definitely breaks is the neglect reminder text, but other than that it has all of it: 1: No set rotation 2: No lifedecking (as its main mechanic) 3: Everything is technically mixable; some things make it harder, but for the most part it's a very mixable game 4: YGO card size is the japan standard (iirc) so it kinda fits? 5: While it is based on another media, all of sin 5's problems - licensing, running the source material dry, etc are all avoided. Because in the anime the characters play the game (and not the game depicting what happened in the anime), it can print cards that never appeared there so you can't run dry. 6: YGO's pretty good at this actually, considering there's no need for damage counters. 7: This is where it fumbles, having NO remind text at all.

[@nirast2561]

@@thefaz3744 Reminder text for what? The game has no keywords.

[@Kohdok]

@@nirast2561 Piercing Damage.

[@nirast2561]

@@Kohdok Finally get a reply from the creator himself, and it's to prove me wrong on something :p. Still, YGO has nowhere near as much need for reminder text as other card games. Can't wait for your Duel Masters video!

[@Scondoro]

You've got the talent to entertain while talking about game design that rivals Mark Rosewater, and I hope you take that as the compliment it is.

[@ivanvincent770]

this channel tickles nostalgia and my inner nerdiness

[@wagons3823]

Soaring Storm is the theme deck winner

[@sapolsaikrasun2270]

Funfact japanese yu-gi-oh decks that comes with a paper playmat, have a card combo guide underneath them.

[@zachwiseman930]

Love the series, always interesting to see the pitfalls of failed card games and the different design decisions the big ones made :). wish you did some bonus sins or something, even if the effort wasnt as high learning about this kind of think is really intersting

[@taylorlindow8927]

Master Rule 5 made it so non link and non pendulum cards can be summoned to normal monster zones, and im fairly confident MR4 came out to stop pendulums from being as good as they were

[@projectcancelled2190]

I take it you didn’t know about the Extra Link Lock Out when making this.

[@rabbitknight87]

Not only does that deck have the bad Galarian Perrserker, it also has the bad Galarian Meowth. The good Perrserker is from SWSH and boosts Metal damage by 20, the good Galarian Meowth is from RCL and can discard 2 to go find a Perrserker card. This deck takes the Meowth from SWSH and the Perrserker from RCL.

[@dragon1130]

That pokemon deck you had at the beginning was the first ever pokemon theme deck I had purchased (I recently got into the game because my nephew collects the cards)

[@drfunkburger3895]

Dude you're awesome I love passionate positive content!

[@LG22475]

5:05. For a split second I thought that the card he held up was an unsleeved Accesscode Talker. Almost had a cringe attack.

[@andrewbader6927]

I watched all of the episodes of this I really like it keep up the good work

[@micboyyaboy2578]

The times of master rules 4 were hard to live under... You had to have link monsters in order to have a good deck. No link monsters meant only one extra deck monster, which meant all decks that cared anything about having multiple extra deck monsters just didn't work. The pendulum debuff was great and certainly needed, but the unplayability of everything else was terrible.

[@TiroDvD]

May you please make a playlist (of your existing videos) where you just review, feature, or quicklook at the various card games you have?

[@TheL0rd0fSpace]

I think the main difference between yugioh, and a board game pretending to be a card game (in the sense that you move cards around a grid like other game pieces) is that Yugioh requires very little setup to establish positioning (just the one card like you said between both players), and cards rarely move around the board. So, I think the main distinctions are ease of setup, and whether the game has lots of movement as a base mechanic, or is just about positioning.

[@evileyeball]

Same here when it comes to writing but then again that comes from the fact that I am a Zebra.... (Ehlers Danlows Syndrome) and have hypermobile fingers.

[@ItsAstridEh]

What is that blue and white thing on the table? I swear I had the exact same thing as a child, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was LOL

[@jrheiselt]

Him: a hand full of gimmick cards Me: Mek-Knights!

[@rallaa]

What do you think of the Zatch Bell card game?

[@Lunatyk5th]

Wow, never thought I'd hear anyone call Pandemic esoteric

[@dpacula63]

I do have to give you a quick update cause you didn’t mention it, I don’t know if it’s relevant, but Yugioh is in master rule 5 now. Basically fusion, synchro, and XYZs work like in master rule 3, but pendulums and links work in the previous master rule 4.

[@Nobody-zl3kk]

"my first break out success" and i really hope it's not the last, your channel is underrated let me tell you, maybe because the channel theme is too broad, as in "TCGs" instead of only one, maybe? i really don't care, that gives you more freedom to talk about whatever you desire. I hope you keep on doing this since this "7 deadly sins of TCGs" series has shown me the production value of the cannel and quality, keep on shinning dude. :3

[@ajh22895]

I had that weird goat deck case. It was a Maccas toy.

[@rolvirata9003]

I wonder if Kohdok has tried Marvel Battleworld from Funko. It seems to break all of his rules, like different sized a cards and cards that create a playmat/playfield.

[@whyjon2990]

would love to see more card game discussions

[@Fluffkitscripts]

I like your funny words, yu-gi-oh man!

[@Guyfrom2001]

I’ve been struggling making my own game. It just comes off as a Yu-Gi-Oh clone. I’m working on the mechanics so it feels unique, but it’s been hard.

[@goldsocks9999]

I use a phone with a life point counter in the center of our play mat

[@MonomaniacalTV]

I am really really feeling this hat

[@Jason0binladen]

Placement matters in yugioh with some cards like weatherpainters or infinite impermanence a common trap used to negate a monster effect and any card activated in that monster's column plus the link monsters themselves have arrows that allow you to link summon to the zones they point to, so you're assessment is being nice yugioh is just a big board game because you have to play it on a board, try playing it on grass or God forbid a motorcycle (though that would be cool)

[@GaussianEntity]

Insert card games on motorcycles reference here

[@tipulsar85]

Playable tutorial in a Rulebook for a board game? Gloomhaven has a stand alone expansion called Jaws of the Lion. Could you go on to use what you learned from that exapnsion to either Gloomhaven or Frosthaven? Yes, even the classes are compatible. As far as Card games are concerned, that type of learning is not compatible with most games that I have seen.

[@grantflippin7808]

🎶 Master rule 4 was a dumpster fire 🎶

[@xoctavia1418]

Would you be apposed to sending feedback on a board/cards game that only uses cards(similar to The DC deckbuilders)? I'm nearing the finalization of my project, and i'm curious what an outside, well versed in games would think. Love the videos, and am using them to make adjustments as needed.

[@jawat0151]

For rulings I have to say YGO is horrendously bad. There are decks (such as Pole Position) which have been built so that your opponent cannot activate any cards due to creating an infinite loop. There is also a website db.ygorganization.com/ which has thousands (not even a joke) of card interactions and niche rulings. Probably one of the hardest things to explain to a beginner is chaining and missing the timing.

[@waltercardcollector]

Chaining isn't so difficult to explain if you think about it like the stack form Magic - the difficulty in Yugioh is the awkwardness of when and what you're allowed to put on a chain. But I totally agree about missing the timing and I am glad they no longer make cards that do that!

[@jawat0151]

@@waltercardcollector Yeah, knowing when you can and can't chain can be quite hard for a new player. A while back I was playing pendulum on DB and someone tried to chain to the effect of my scale to place counters on itself. It took 30 mins and a judge call to make it clear to my opponent that it is a continuous effect (no semicolon therefore no activation requirement) and does not activate which means it doesn't start a chain. It's also funny how every yang zing misses timing.

[@waltercardcollector]

@@jawat0151 Yeah I have no idea why they made Yang Zings miss timing! And this was right after it was made widely known that missing timing was a big deal.

[@MiguelitoJimz]

How to win in Yugioh: Rulebook: Reduce your opponent's Life Points to 0. Actual Yugioh players: Wait, do this game have Life Points? In Yugioh there's something called a "win condition" which in most cases is basically setup a board that your opponent can't go throught, so they end up surrendering.

[@matejlieskovsky9625]

This is a problem with some games. Basically, the actual gameplay has diverged from the basic experience to the point that the two are almost different games. It tends to make it impossible for new people to spectate. Fighting games struggle with this in the video game genre - to great players, it is practically a strategy game played at sixty turns a second with none of the input difficulties that new players face. I love playing Hanabi, but it has a little bit of this problem - the rules are oh so very simple but the gameplay is a (wonderful) nuanced mess that differs between groups. I think this even translates to sports. It might not be the best example, but ever notice how F1 is sometimes more about "when do I pit" than "drive fast".

[@Stinkoman87]

Magic Commander has that kind of problem to. There are a lot of games that are 90% setup and 10% wiping your opponent out in one go.

[@DeconvertedMan]

there is this card game I remember where you spun the physical cards, and fought with toy robots -- I can not recall its name -- anyone know of it??

[@laughingfurry]

Could be Medabots.

[@DeconvertedMan]

@@laughingfurry no I do not think it was based on any anime/cartoon - I just recall we had it in stock at our game store YEARS ago. Different parts of the robot had different cards I think - you would spin the actual card - it had like, a dent in it so that one side had this little bump to spin it , when it stopped spinning you would see what your card vs there card lined up as - and that would tell you what you damaged - parts that were "damaged" would be actually removed from the toy itself, you could "walk them" towards each other, "hit" with the axe that one of them carried - something like that - you would win, I think, when you had made the other robots bits all come off.

[@laughingfurry]

@@DeconvertedMan Okay. Now I know what you're talking about. Unfortunately, I don't recall. It was something an anime board game borrowed. Try finding who ever talks about the Digimon, Pokemon, or Yugioh board games. I forgot which franchise borrowed that mechanic, but the video name drops the card game. I watch a lot of board game review channels, so it's hard to recall who said and in which vid. Maybe Kohdok would know, if he reads this.

[@corrackisdead]

Where you rolled an octagonal dice you put your moves on? Xeno something

[@DeconvertedMan]

@@laughingfurry Yeah I do not think anyone borrowed the mechanic - there was an issue sleeving the cards - doing so would make them hard/ impossible to spin, and that was a major *oof* for most of us - we all put cards in sleeves the idea to NOT do that - heresy! I can only hope to put this out there that someone knows what the bleep I'm talking about - yes I googled and googled with no result. Its like that Japanese music video I am looking for - a perhaps hopeless hunt for an obscure thing that someone might know what it is lol... I put it on reddit - nothing. Blah. Anyway... ah... card games.

[@matthewpopow6647]

Dude, rule books are one of my biggest pet peeves. I'm a board game player, 9 times out of 10 the rules are written terribly. What I tend to do is instead go straight to KZbin to watch a how to play video.

[@sinisternightcore3489]

You wake up and find yourself as the CEO of a major card came company. Today's agenda: Design a new TCG! What kind of card game would you create if you were CEO or head designer and had the funds to let your creativity run wild?

[@mbsisktb9045]

I don’t think Krossmaster has been supported for a while. I didn’t follow it specifically but the Dice Tower podcast and a few others touched on it a bit and I haven’t heard them speak about it in a long while I will say for a lot of the points you bring up a lot of board games have been shifting to trying to a model of what you’re talking about with rules or (and often in addition) a QR code that brings up a friendly video to teach it quickly. I will say that a 15-20 min video can be more friendly when teaching a group

[@esseubot]

Krossmaster hasn't been supported. Ankama in general has a very short "memory" span for their products if they aren't Dofus. It's sad because I really like Krosmaster

[@seanmulligan9082]

Can you do a video on the Harry Potter TCG? Ever since I seen it in your videos I've been intensely curious what it would be like

[@VieneLea]

Thank you so much for this series! I expected you to be another YT know-it-all who wallows in mud of their own opinions and tries to throw them at others or just draw others into that mud by trying to be as convincing as possible, but you actually have a clear insight and experience in all those CCGs and not only remained critical but also in many aspects changed the way I view them (mostly in the Unmixable Attributes and the recycling of art in licensed works) which I can't thank you enough for. That said there's one thing that perplexes me - you seem to have a particular dislike for a cardgame called "Cardfight Vanguard", even calling it "Voldemort" sometimes. Why do you dislike it so much? I've never played it but rudimentary glance at the rules makes it look at least interesting, but you have no video on it that I could find.

[@justanoman6497]

A good game(card or board) should have a simple set of basic rules that can be explained(or read&understood) under 5 min to get one started. Even if not played perfectly correctly, it would still be a functional game (just not necessarily as intended). This is pretty much what you focused on in this video and should indeed be on the first section of the rule book. Simple read to start experimenting. In context of yugioh, for example, to put simply, f**k extra deck. It should also have a more detailed rules set on more minute matters such as chains, timing etc. Once again, as yugioh was an example, this is where you explained the twisted reality of extra deck (well, also the noted chain, timing etc) And finally, it needs an easily accessible and robust online database for specific card rulings when weird interaction happens. As all games, the goal is easy to start, hard to master. There is absolutely no need to dive directly into the deep end. We can, at start, simply ignore the more difficult interactions. The problem with many older card games is that they keep introducing new mechanics into the game(yugioh and magic both suffer from this, from someone who only dabbled in magic at some point, dah faq is a planewalker, and before anyone say I'm a yugioh fan, I found out link summon like last week. I stopped playing after synchron came out, though I at least knew what that and xyz is. Bit foggy on pendulum.). So the intro section might not cover the cards properly if they so much as encounter a card that deals with more complicated mechanic. Say if they busted it out of a pack or something. This is part of the reason why I like the concept of starter/structure decks. Not only are they a functional deck that you can just start playing with w/o worrying about construction, but you can outright avoid having overly complicated mechanics in the cards at all. (such as, as noted, the entirety of the extra deck in yugioh. You can just ignore all that to begin by having decks that doesn't deal with them. It's not an essential part of the game--it didn't even exist at first, I mean there were fusions to start, but those are quite optional, if it were up to me I'd even avoid rituals) So two such deck playing against each other can be done using the most basic of the game's rule. And for some games, at this point, I feel they need to release a full starter sets with a starter deck and a good deal of cards to swap in/out as you progress. You learn more mechanic of the game as you play with each modified iteration of the deck (say 3 times each, or until you draw some of the "new stuff"). Digital games actually have whole tutorial campaign to do exactly this, but this is obviously a more tedious matter for physical card games. (And this is where you can introduce stuff like link monsters)

[@josephxp96]

Newer Yugioh structure deck mats have the turn structure on the back of them.

[@JakeCosplays]

Heroxlix had a map " how to play " for a starter box when they first produced there game. you should check out the Card game #Factions it's running a kickstarter and its been playtested at gaming events

[@reikolupus136]

I wonder what Kohdok thinks of the system of Cores from BattleSpirits.

[@fennecfoxfanatic]

what kind of card game was the my little pony ccg? I collected the cards but never learned how to play

[@khristian625]

You basically played friends to problems. Doing so scored you points. First to 15 wins.

[@keinkanal7382]

As German who apparently are obsessed with complicated boardgames, trust me when i say "7 deadly sins of boardgames" wouldnt be just 7 sins.