The Retro Renaissance ∣ The Rise of Legacy Yu-Gi-Oh

A video essay detailing a hypothesis to why and how the rise in retro yugioh of the modern day came to be. Hope you enjoy, if you're reading this ily
Tweeter: / sleepy_ygo

[@sleepyygo]

Decades of Duels Discord: discord.gg/t5xBWjU Format Library Discord: discord.gg/p4DQ7Jx6 Reaper Format Discord: discord.gg/WS9pys2H Goat Format Website: www.goatformat.com some of these might expire just drop a comment and I can get you an updated link

[@Brawler_1337]

Format Library seems to have expired.

[@EVC1094]

I would also suggest that everyone check out the channel “Who Needs Meta.” He and his friends play any past format between Goat format (2005) all the way up to Duelist Alliance format (2014).

[@lordofthered1257]

Dude I was brought into older formats through Yuginono like four years ago. He did several videos on older formats and I immediately fell in love with 2002 and Dark Armed and GOAT

[@Timbo_Jones]

I got back into Goat format earlier this year after a 10 year hiatus from the game. It's led to me collecting cards for, and replaying, older formats that I love like September 2007, and even ones that I'm much less familiar with, like Edison and Tengu Plant. It's been a real joy and I can't wait to build even more retro decks.

[@sleepyygo]

Having a bunch of decks that you can just hand out to people to have them play with you is a great feeling 🥰

[@spotsthecat7913]

Sept 2007 is the best!

[@lklluvia18]

Ive been playing september 2011 pre PHSW, and god, i love the format. I started playing in that exact format, but I was new, I was never able to experience it as it should be exprienced, and ive wanted to play retro for a long time now. Thanks to PAKs video i discovered that there were communitys playing retro, so i joined them. For now Im building a ton of 2011 format, but as soon as i can ill build some 2012 and 2014 decks

[@sleepyygo]

This is the type of stuff we love to hear 🥰, 2011 is too hype

[@harrisplofsky171]

Personally, what drew me in to past formats and decks was Lithium2300’s Cross Banlist Cup. It’s a lot of fun to see how so many decks from very different times in the game operate. However, what has really driven it home has been me and my friends playing through the formats similarly to CIMOOOOOOOO’s history of Yugioh. We started it at the very beginning of the pandemic, because we had gotten into doing various duel challenges and I had suggested a traditional tournament. They all agreed that I’d have an unfair advantage having been far more familiar not only with most of the cards on the banlist, but what put them there. So we decided we play through old formats so we can all experience the strongest cards in the game, played in their primes. Playing Pharaohs Servant format with 3 Imperial Order was absolute insanity. We also have played some more “obscure” formats, such as 2006 Reaper Format and August 2011 Tengu, before the banlist that started the iconic September 2011 format. I got to play Ultimate Offering Gadgets in a format with a lot of great synchros, but without heavy storm. Overall it’s been pretty awesome

[@chimmyinfernape9189]

I started getting back into yugioh about 2 years ago from a long ass hiatus. And I think what drew me back is the fact that each card and every artwork is unique. I can turn thru my binder and just say wow this art is beautiful. I somewhat started to re pick up the game when lotd came out, not super competitive but if a locals opened up here I’d totally play

[@lyzzysmyth7014]

Hey this video is basically about me! I picked up playing Plant format at the start of the pandemic. I think what initially got me interested in the era was a ds game. I also remember watching video's of Billy Brake playing the format and general praise for it. I have been absolutely loving it! I'm currently building up a collection of different decks and staples from the format with the hope that when the pandemic is over, I can play it locals and maybe build a bit of a community there.

[@WhoNeedsMeta]

It's the ability to revisit your youth with the financial benefit that comes with adulthood.

[@stardustspark5682]

I wanna say first, I love all of your videos, I've watched a lot of them multiple times, I've watch the Blackwing one like ten times lmao, please keep them up. I do wanna add some context I think you missed. I think the retro renaissance actually dates back to early 2017 or even late 2016. YugiNoNo was extremely popular then and was always pushing Goat format as he said it was one of, if not his favorite formats in Yu-Gi-Oh history. The video "INTRODUCTION TO GOAT FORMAT!" was extremely popular at the time and is still one of his most popular videos on the channel. He also made a ton of discussion videos and deck profiles and even duel videos on Goat format. He then followed that video up with three more videos in the same style as the Goat format one, but on Yugi-Kaiba format, Tele-DaD, and finally Nekroz format. I think the extreme popularity of YugiNoNo at the time pushing Goat format is what helped jumpstart the retro renaissance as you called it, even if it took a few years to expand into more formats. Goat is obviously the most well known and popular retro format, and I absolutely attribute that popularity (or at some of it) to YugiNoNo and other creators and even top players like Calvin Tahan (best ABC player with many other tops) helping push the popularity of this format. Also the addition of a ranked Goat format on DuelingBook helped push it and other retro formats even further, giving "legitimacy" to a retro format outside of a tournament being held rarely by non-Konami companies. Outside of just the pandemic, part of the smaller Goat renaissance (before other formats became more popular like HAT and Edison), was because of 2017 and 2018 being objectively bad years for yugioh. Even though I liked the decks of 2017 a lot, it was a tier 0 year for Zoodiac cards, where from February to like September you had to have Zoodiac cards in your deck or else you weren't going to top the YCS. This got even more extreme in May of 2017 with Fusion Sub. October 2017 gave us tier 0 Spyral, and then Pendulum FTK, Dark Warrior FTK, Gumblar handloop for 6, Gouki extra link with an Iblee on your field, ABC FTK, Danger FTK, etc. 2018 was just the year of the FTK and psuedo-FTK, which made the standard format really awful to play, so a lot of people switched over to playing retro formats, especially Goat. That renaissance died down in 2019 with the Eternal format (or TOSS format as some people call it) where those decks were actually fun to play and play against, not just FTK after FTK. I liked this video a lot, but I do believe you started after the "real" retro renaissance, it's like starting the history of Rock and Roll with Elvis rather than people like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, ya know?

[@sleepyygo]

Firstly, thanks sm for the support, to hear that ppl are enjoying my content truly does make my day. Secondly thanks for the comment, there are seemingly alot of things that I din’t talk about, specifically dating from around 2016 and 2017. You’re totally right, looking back there was that original push in 2017 that really did get more than anything goat format back in the spotlight. And yuginono definitely did start the trend of retro yugioh, at least in part. I more or less wanted to expand on the fact that people were playing more than just goat nowadays and from what I had seen from the past that’s mostly true. However you do make a bunch of valid points and in retrospect starting the video with discussion about the popularization of goat would probably have been a good call, and realistically maybe a second video speaking about that is a good idea, sort of as a prologue to this. On a separate note, i think its super interesting (not necessarily surprising) that the eras when retro has blown up are the eras where yugioh has been more or less in a rough place. Really does give me hope that even if konami were to shut down the game or drive it in the complete wrong direction it would still thrive. Once again i really do appreciate the comment, theres certainly things I missed and that’s on me, I appreciate all the feedback as I’m still learning and it can only help my content in the future! Much love ❤️

[@diamonddudeygo]

I've played Goat Format for almost 5 years and I loved it, but I felt like the Trinity really reduced what could be super interesting games into one sided stomp fests. A friend of mine suggested we build Tengu Plant decks because it's a format we both played and greatly enjoyed but we never could get the better decks because TGU was an insanely expensive card. We both built the standard Tengu Plant deck and played mirrors all day. I wanted to try out more decks, so I bought pretty much every playable 2011 deck. I have built Karakuri, T.G. Stun, T.G. Agents, Mist Valleys, Chaos HERO, Volcanic HERO, Frog Monarch, Mystic Piper Chaos, Agents, Chaos Agents, Blackwings, Flamvell, Gadgets, Gladiator Beasts, Gravekeeper, Infernity, Rock Stun and Worms, and I want to buy Blackwings, Six Samurai and Lightsworns. The format feels super fresh, there's a lot of very playable options, the decks are pretty cheap outside of very specific cards (Mystic Piper and Maxx "C" being the biggest offenders) and i feel like there's a lot of stuff to be discovered. Mist Valleys never saw competitive success in 2011 and I've been terrorizing my friend group with them. We're having a lot of fun with decks that are a fraction of the value of modern Yugioh decks. We play 2011 between rounds at tournaments, and sometimes we get together in a pub and play old yugioh while drinking beer. Yugioh has been missing alternative formats for a long while, and I'm sorry it took a pandemic to reinvigorate the love for retro formats, but I couldn't be happier about the result.

[@sleepyygo]

I absolutely agree! It took such a long time but man it makes me so happy to hear stuff like this! Yugioh has such a sick history with so many cool formats and decks, im rly hype ppl are diving deeper into it!

[@JJSquirtle]

I spent most of my life playing old school yugioh due to poverty, the most modern cards I had were in the 2008 megatins aside from a random booster pack here and there, the occasional blister pack, and gacha card dispensers. While I enjoy fast and modern yugioh; especially 2016, I pretty much never stopped playing old formats in a sense.

[@snazzygagagigo524]

Growing up in rural Ireland there was limited access to Yugioh cards. There was a phase when everyone wanted to play Yugioh but it died out fast and only a few dedicated yugioh players remained. There was no locals near me and I pretty much played Yugioh with 3 other friends. When duelingnetwork came out I played on that and that enabled me to experience a lot of the current formats at the time and get good at the game. I also spent a lot of time watching Yugioh videos on KZbin and that’s how I was connected to the game. There are a lot of decks that I’ve always wanted to build like Sylvans and Gusto for example. But I was never able to build them due to limited access to cards. (I didn’t know about specialist websites) my only options were to buy on Amazon for terrible shipping and often extortionate prices not reflective of the true card value on the market (€8 for a rare Crystal beast topaz tiger). Or to buy cards at Argos, (my options were a structure deck/special edition that I didn’t know what I was going to get. Or 4 booster packs, and I wouldn’t know which ones they were when buying either, they were usually the current or last set of the time) So really I never got to build a lot of the decks I wanted. It was a bit frustrating being able to build these complete decks on dueling book, but then have to play my real life gravekeepers deck with no gravekeepers recruiter, or royal tribute. Things started to change a bit when I went to college, I moved into a location where there was more of a Yugioh community and I had my own money, and I found out about better ways to buy online than feckin’ Amazon. I still didn’t have a lot of money though due to being in college. I only ended up playing competitively during the time of the monarch and synchro structure decks and when lunalights first came out. Now I’m finished college, and I have more money to spend now, and I still want to build a lot of the decks that I’ve always wanted to play since I was younger. Past formats are the perfect way to do that, as I can build the decks as I envisioned them at the time, rather than trying to make old and power crept archetypes conform to the very different environment that exists today. Also I find that once you learn a past format, that’s it. You know how to play it pretty decently for good. These Past few years I’ve found myself too busy to focus on the meta game, as such when I want to return I find myself almost being like a new player again due to how complex the combos have gotten in the game recently. Plus if I build a deck to a past format, it’s done. I don’t have to revisit it all the time and that frees me up to collect decks I like and still be able to focus on new deck building projects. I don’t mind current Yugioh, honestly it’s grand. But I love the return to retro Yugioh that has happened recently. I always felt like it was a bit of a shame when certain periods in Yugioh died out because to me each era of Yugioh has its own distinctive feeling. Now they are being revitalised which is great!

[@sleepyygo]

I think you put it exactly how I always think about it when you said youd rather play the decks in their original form than trying to conform them to the metagame. Thats something that really does stick out to me, you can play some older archetypes nowadays but the way they play is hardly In reference to the deck you look back and envision. I’m super happy that people are able to play these older formats and form communities playing the decks they want to play, the way they want to play them. Warms my heart 🥰

[@snazzygagagigo524]

@@sleepyygo It warms my heart too. It is a great thing that communities are coming together to explore and revisit different eras of the game. I like your videos a lot, and thanks for the Tengu plants format video, as that is part of what sparked my interest in playing that format.

[@sleepyygo]

@@snazzygagagigo524 tysm for the support! Really glad people liked that vid, really happy it inspired some ppl!

[@Ben_C._Rex]

I grew up with the Yu-Gi-Oh DS games and especially enjoy the 2010 game. I've been playing the Tele-D.a.D format and other slightly later formats for 10 years now because of the DS games by playing these games and playing the formats irl. I'm also playing the 2002 Yugi/Kaiba format far bevor the pandemic hit and Yuginono's introduction to the format brought me into this.

[@sleepyygo]

Yuginono was actually my personal first intro to goat! I’m glad his content managed to get other people more informed about lesser known formats, I hope youtubers nowadays continue that trend, would love to see more content on these older formats out there

[@ButterclawEnthusiast]

September 2011 format is the format i've been seeking refuge in for about a year now. I just have a hard time adjusting to modern competitive yugioh ever since synchro eldlich format. Old formats like september 2011 almost feel like a different game entirely compared to modern, and while i'm not the best player around, I could tell that there's way less situations where your opponent just has the nuts and you have to scoop cause you didn't draw the out. This makes the format feel more skill-based in my opinion.

[@sleepyygo]

I think you’re totally right and personally synchro eld format was also when I started diving deeper into the retro stuff as well. The baseline mechanics of yugioh are something I do truly love however I feel sometimes that the most recent formats dont display them and take advantage of the unique gameplay as much as older formats do.

[@JesterQueenAnne]

In my case, a legacy format I feel is underappreciated and may be more relevant in the future is TOSS/Eternal/2019 format. Imo the only really fun format since Links were released and maybe since BA/Shaddoll format.

[@sleepyygo]

I can agree with that I think, apart of the reason I made the video on the format that I did, it deserves way more recognition imo

[@orchidquack]

I love your videos sleepy, keep them up!

[@sleepyygo]

Hell yeah I will ❤️ the support always makes my day

[@armipotentcs]

I've recently grown more interested in previous formats, largely because of the Progression Series and History of YGO of course, but in general a lot of the appeal has come from interesting deck ideas and format structures that offer a refreshing look into what YGO could be. The current format is fine and I enjoy it a ton, but if there's other ways to enjoy a game, you're damn sure people are going to try it to find a niche they enjoy most.

[@sleepyygo]

Yugioh is just a great fucking game dude! No reason for the community to limit itself to play just one way, i fw this attitude ❤️

[@sorba1257]

Hey man, as a new subscriber I just wanted to say that I love your work! Keep it up!

[@sleepyygo]

Tysm!

[@strawberrow198]

This was a really nice video! I'm glad to see people take such great interest in retro yugioh now. I've been trying to get back into current but a lot of things end up turning me off about it. Too many complicated effects and games end up feeling really straightforward. It also feels impossible to win if you open bad. Or maybe you open fine but since you didn't go first, you end up losing :(

[@sleepyygo]

Current can often feel like a game of go fish, older stuff always makes me feel like i have a fighting chance

[@peredurxiv9174]

hm, another thing that could be mentioned is that retro formats funfamentally arent evolving tcgs, they are more like a board game as nothing changes in them. This is great for older players who font have the time to consistently play yugioh, but have like 2 times a year some off-time from work and get to play yugioh for like 2 weeks straight. Then it is just nice knowing all the cards in the card pool and not having to lern all the new cards, so you can start playing again instantly.

[@sleepyygo]

Absolutely true, honestly kinda embarrassing I didn’t highlight this bit, one of the biggest reasons these formats are so inviting 😅

[@melffyrabby1009]

I’ve had a ton of eternal format duels recently and it’s been a ton of fun

[@sleepyygo]

Great format ❤️

[@Ben_C._Rex]

Eternal is one of my favorites as well. My favorite Deck to play in this format is Salamangreat but I actually like playing all of the top decks. I could however only afford Salamangreat at that time and purchased TD when they got their reprints towards the end of the year.

[@sleepyygo]

@@Ben_C._Rex thunder was a really fun deck gatekept by the price for most of the format, really happy people are revisiting and getting to play the deck now, its sick asf

[@melffyrabby1009]

@@Ben_C._Rex my favorite was sky striker orcust

[@rocktagon]

Awesome vid! Think it might be a good idea to link the discords for format library, decades, reaper format, etc? Bet there will be people who will want to explore them after watching this

[@sleepyygo]

True true

[@Yog-shi]

A timely overview of the current state of things good work.

[@sleepyygo]

Ty ❤️

[@traplover6357]

I almost clicked off the video cuz of that intro til you caught me lol but I get it that nostaglia or new player discovering old formats is on the rise. As a player who entered the game in 2015 exactly after the end of Nekroz/Shaddoll/BA/Qli/Satellar format and with Kozmos Dark Destroyer and Majespectors being released in Dimensions of Chaos, playing 10+ years of formats before that time that I never participated in is new content. I'm recently loving 2014 HAT format for example

[@sleepyygo]

Absolutley my same feelings, I entered the game originally at the same time actually and going back now to explore everything that came before it has been a great experience tbh

[@timbitz079]

I wish you can pump out more vids bruh! You talk about interesting topics

[@sleepyygo]

I try 😅 hopefully I can put some more stuff out there but im a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my scripts

[@timbitz079]

@@sleepyygo I can tell. It caught my attention. Keep it up the good work!

[@sleepyygo]

@@timbitz079 I’ll do my best ❤️

[@minabasejderha5972]

Wouldn't this be in some tension with what you said in the Divergent Duality video about how Yugioh'a biggest strength is in its singular format that has as many cards in it as possible? I mean, just as an example, alt formats have *always* been a vibrant thing in MtG because set rotation has always encouraged us to think of the game as containing multitudes of possible environments. While we always had Legacy and Vintage formats (which are the equivalent of Advanced format and Traditional format respectively), not to mention EDH/Commander, the most popular format, and while all of these span the entire publication history of the game, the existence of a competitive and highly publicized format that is constantly changing has trained us to think of the game as having historical periods we can revisit. I just think that part of the appeal for a lot of people of older formats like Goat and Edison, is that players are able to slow the game down away from the breakneck pace the game has reached. In these slower formats, you can play over beer and a conversation, rather than closely paying attention to chain links. (And to be clear, I say this is an advantage even though I am a diehard defender of Ishizu format.) In any case, I think the biggest advantage of retro formats is that they provide an on and off ramp for Advanced format. Someone who's been out since Hidden Arsenal can pick up and play Edison without worrying about whatever they missed before they get back into the habit of playing regularly. But yeah, what got me into retro was the Progression Series and History of Yugioh, if you want to know me specifically. Personally, I think there is a lot more promise in cube/draft formats, in terms of scratching the itch we have for variety. But they require a lot more support amd effort from konami, LGCs, or individuals to get off the ground. So, for now, retro is probably as good as we are going to get, though some people, such as RJB0 have been doing good work in trying to spread the word.

[@sleepyygo]

Yugioh’s biggest selling point is also it’s biggest issue. The compounding card pool while being a strength has reached a level in which certain mechanics have been completely blacked out at this point. I love the game at most of it’s stages of evolution, I think taking ‘off ramps’ as you said is the best way to immortalize someone’s favorite eras of the game’s ever growing evolution. It never stops growing, it’s a wild thing to watch but I don’t think it’s contradictory to want to enjoy different eras of that growth :)

[@justsomedangerbigfootwithweb]

Could you do a video on the mermail/fire fist format?

[@sleepyygo]

This is something I rly want to do but I need to find the time to research and playtest, certainly something I would like to put out eventually

[@justsomedangerbigfootwithweb]

@@sleepyygo Thank you for replying and keep up the great work. 👍

[@sleepyygo]

@@justsomedangerbigfootwithweb thanks so much ❤️

[@bobbybero7452]

But will there be irl tournaments? That is the question

[@sleepyygo]

We will simply have to wait and see, only time will tell, hope so

[@davidwagner9950]

Wondering if they have torrential or Gorz has always felt less awful than wondering if they have nibiru or ash. Fact.

[@sleepyygo]

I concur

[@esphir5471]

Since the current format is (at least for me) a bit boring right now, I was also looking out for a diffrent format to play in for quite some time. The formats that look the most appetizing for me, would be the 2014 (Duelist Allience) format or maybe even the TOSS/Eternal format. I mean, I've heard a lot of good things about the 2014 format, that it's like one of the peak formats of Yugioh. That it got quite some good variety of decks you can play, their skill level, that it already got quite a big fan base, and so on and so on. And TOSS simply because of the nostalgia factor, since it is the format where I've started play Yugioh. So yeah, this video is actually quite a big motivation to dive a bit more into these older formats, thanks for that dude :)

[@sleepyygo]

Duea is full of amazing decks I’m glad people are diving into it more! And for sure I’m glad I can be motivation ❤️

[@Dakki_]

All I want to say is as a budget player, I have a really hard time getting every high rarity cards for each legacy format newly discovered ! You guys should slow down ! ^^

[@sleepyygo]

I feel you 😞

[@Dakki_]

@@sleepyygo fortunately, I'm european. There are no outrageous buyouts here ^^

[@sleepyygo]

Americans go craaazy with this shit XD

[@JJSquirtle]

@@sleepyygo they do! Canada luckily only has buyouts mostly for mtg and pokemon due to the basically non-existent yugioh scene here.

[@danwest8127]

It’s super long, but here is my answer as to why I play retro yugioh and not current yugioh: - nostalgia bias: I’m a yugioh boomer and have followed the game since 2002 so I recognize I’m biased there. Playing retro yugioh let’s me use decks I could never afford with back in the day and I lived the competitive meta vicariously through channels on KZbin like teamdkf. I looked at things like their secret rare dark armed dragons in awe and now that I’m older and finally own those cards, it takes me back to that feeling. - the state of current yugioh is just nowhere near as fun for me personally. It’s far less interactive and I find cards do too much - they all have two to four effects vs something like jinzo that has one line of text but was deemed limit worthy back in the day. This leads to so much more reading your opponent’s cards consistently during games and constantly asking “what’s that do?”. Older yugioh formats it was very common that people knew what every card did, partly because staples were much more prevalent in abundance, and more time was spent on interaction than current yugioh. I talk about cards doing too much because in my opinion monster cards have really taken the role of traps in a game as power creep has led to them needing to protect themselves. Yes, traps have seen a resurgence in the last year and I like that, but current yugioh has seen a trend of building negate effects into boss monsters. Yugioh used to be: you advance your position and battle with your monsters, you support this with your spells, and you try to stop them with your traps. Constantly printing the word “negate” on monster effects leads to them doing all of these things. And you can say “but cards like jinzo, stardust, and evolzar laggia/dolkka has negate effects”. Yeah they did, but those were a lot harder to bring out typically (even for the evolz you needed to open rabbit or it would usually take multiple turns to make one) and there were a lot of ways to get rid of them because their negates weren’t a) backed up by 4 other negates and b) such a blanket, they did specific things. The thing about trap cards is usually after stopping your opponent they go away, they don’t remain to be used again next turn on the form of a massive body. That’s what cards like borreload savage dragon are - they’re just trap cards in the form of massive bodies and with the speed the game runs at these days, no one will say a generic link 4 or synchro 8 is hard to pump out. Build a board is so much more common in current yugioh and it is unhealthy that your opponent can take a 10+ minute turn that just automatically sends you into a scoop. Yes you can say “be better at deck building so you can out those boards” but at the end of the day, if you don’t draw your outs, you don’t draw your outs, nothing you can do. Older formats gave you more time to play around powerful cards because they were slower. Current yugioh feels like it is about how many interruptions you have rather than the technical, resource-based play that involved you unlocking your opponent and making smarter calls than them. Reads were rewarded more back in the day I find (not saying they’re not skillful now). In general, I’m not saying current yugioh sucks (though I’m so disconnected from it and I find it so hard to get back into), but for me it doesn’t have the feel of older formats that I loved so much

[@sleepyygo]

I think you made some very good points, specifically I certainly agree with your assessment of trap cards. I’m of the opinion that traps are the mechanic that not only separates yugioh from other games but also is the mechanic that really makes yugioh as slow and methodical as it can be. I think losing that as the focus has hurt the game quite a bit over the years.

[@beef5050]

yugi kaiba best format

[@sleepyygo]

Based

[@Chasecon]

First

[@bobbybero7452]

First comment and second amendment 😃👍🏻

[@Circ00mspice]

I've been exposed to older formats thanks to playing old YGO games

[@harrisplofsky171]

Personally, what drew me in to past formats and decks was Lithium2300’s Cross Banlist Cup. It’s a lot of fun to see how so many decks from very different times in the game operate. However, what has really driven it home has been me and my friends playing through the formats similarly to CIMOOOOOOOO’s history of Yugioh. We started it at the very beginning of the pandemic, because we had gotten into doing various duel challenges and I had suggested a traditional tournament. They all agreed that I’d have an unfair advantage having been far more familiar not only with most of the cards on the banlist, but what put them there. So we decided we play through old formats so we can all experience the strongest cards in the game, played in their primes. Playing Pharaohs Servant format with 3 Imperial Order was absolute insanity. We also have played some more “obscure” formats, such as 2006 Reaper Format and August 2011 Tengu, before the banlist that started the iconic September 2011 format. I got to play Ultimate Offering Gadgets in a format with a lot of great synchros, but without heavy storm. Overall it’s been pretty awesome