WHAT MAKES YU-GI-OH! SO HARD?

[@SootDumpling]

The one that shocked me that no one brought up was the concept of "Failing to find". In every other game, you can play a search card without needing the target in your deck. The idea that only in YGO, if you happen to not know *exactly* how many Warriors are in your deck, and you play ROTA with 0 targets in deck, you can get a penalty is so strange to me.

[@aidanyoung9133]

This is also a new(-ish) thing! In Goats, for example, you could discard your 3rd Thunder Dragon, say “whoops, all out of Thundra, guess he doesn’t search,” and that’s that.

[@Alkhemia8]

In magic you can even do it on purpose tho there are not a lot of reasons to do so

[@SicDrykEst]

Official YGO play has a lot of rules that just boil down to "Hope you have a good memory lol". Note taking is the same.

[@JorgeLuiz487]

The worst offender is definitely the existence of crop circles a card that basically says "if you cant find any targets take 2k damage" but you cant even activate if you dont have cards at the first place?? Huh?

[@Rahnonymous]

There's literally only 1 instance of "failing to find" in yugioh. Deal 3k damage, activate crop circles, opponent chains Inferno Tempest, all your targets are banished upon resolution, and you take 2k damage

[@SknowingWolf]

This is why I enjoy just playing automated sims like master duel with the rulings baked in. I've wanted to try getting into paper but I feel like I would play so absolutely wrong lol.

[@codyhanson1344]

It's not so bad when playing simplified formats with all the obvious problematic stuff banned, and then from there you just level up one complicated ruling at a time if you want to get into modern yugioh bad enough. The thing about Master Duel is that it's the only official automatic duel simulator, yet it doesn't even have the main official yugioh format included, let alone other side formats that are arguably even better.

[@Salvare___000]

the problem about this is that master duel follows the OCG rulings, which sometimes are very different from TCG rulings

[@42VictorPessoa]

same

[@Merilirem]

@@Salvare___000 Not a problem at all if you only play by the OCG rulings.

[@SknowingWolf]

@@Salvare___000 understandable, but tbf if a player just wants to play and not get into paper it is kinda a moot point. but for someone like me who is curious about getting into paper this is a very good thing to bring up.

[@-rolyat44]

As someone who played yugioh as their first real card game, is practically entirely self taught in the game through sheer will, and has attempted to teach friends with pretty wide ranges of card game experience how to play the game, the really truly difficult thing about the game is the fact that cards are constantly doing things that search or summon something that is private knowledge and you cannot know what those other cards will do until after you've seen them so you have to let the first card resolve and if you definitely should've stopped the first card then it's too late, you've already lost the game.

[@superskrub4209]

Branded fusion doesn't seem like a big deal if you don't know what the fusions can do on the field and materials in the GY

[@VixYW]

This is something I don't think about that much nowadays, but yeah, it's total bullshit that the player is pretty much required to have full knowledge of cards they don't even play to avoid getting screwed. Would be extremely new player friendly if you had to declare the card your searching/summoning, and the opponent had the opportunity to check it before committing to disrupting the play or not.

[@jarrellspencer9014]

​@@superskrub4209branded fusion is one of the representatives for what's wrong with the game. 1 card snowball avalanches don't happen consistently in other games, yugioh though, generic incohesive decks can snowball in to unbreakable board.

[@randommaster06]

Konami took the worst parts of interactive and noninteractive games. You have to have interruptions, but you don't know how well those interruptions will actually work.

[@RoyaltonDrummer922]

Well that’s just knowing the meta. That’s not crazy

[@sushiroll3795]

I'm shocked that I haven't seen anybody mention Trap Monsters. You could fill a phonebook with how many ridiculous ruling nightmares they cause.

[@itsmetristan3671]

Trap monsters are fairly consistent with how they work. I'm not sure what nightmares they'd cause.

[@MrTweetumss00]

​@itsmetristan3671 they do cause some silly game states sometimes though

[@itsmetristan3671]

@@MrTweetumss00 like?

[@EnderPryde]

​@@itsmetristan3671then Book of Moon one.

[@itsmetristan3671]

@@EnderPryde If still treated as a trap, it goes back FD in the backrow as a trap If not, it's set in the monster zone, still as a monster.

[@sanity933]

The concept of a monster “remembering” things about itself when it was flipped or moved was so unintuitive that at my first locals I would just scoop games rather than try to have a judge explain it to me

[@GranMaj]

Yeah, it's so stupid, that this can apply in some scenarios but not others.

[@Infinite8blue]

Today I learned monsters being attached has an XYZ material does not count as leaving the field

[@torakandwolf6786]

Also the difference between discarding and sending from hand to grave? You’re performing the same physical action but they are different because? Differences between if and when effects really frustrate me too. Oh your monster effect has to activate last in a chain? Too bad, I’ll stop it with my own effect that doesn’t even negate. So dumb.

[@b1acksteve]

@@Infinite8blue Oh man that old can of worms. That hell of people trying to trigger sangan off of detaching when xyz first came out

[@adamsherwani3971]

Fair

[@superskrub4209]

1:00 Fun fact: this kind of thing is called a directed acyclic graph 6:20 I rationalize it as its feet not touching the board yet, like I've taken the card out and hovering over the zone im gonna place it. So Trap Hole requires the monster to touch the ground before it can fall in while Solemn just zaps it out the air

[@SuperSayianWarrior]

I always called the state as Summon Limbo

[@SakuraAvalon]

I liken it too a Train. You get off from the 'Hand' Train, and wait at the Train Station for the 'Field' Train to pull in, so you can get onto it. And cards negating your Summon, are like you being late and missing your Train.

[@GeneralSherman4]

TCBOO and gozen would be far less annoying as floodgates if they weren't clairvoyant

[@sushiroll3795]

100%. I have absolutely no idea why they don't only account for the monster(s) that would be on the field after a summon instead of still considering the monster(s) that would've already left the field by then.

[@soup2504]

One thing I fucking HATE about those floodgates is that they don’t make sense. You can’t make a monster with a type/attribute you already control when you literally SEND THE MATERIALS TO THE GY BEFORE TOU SUMMON IT????!!!!

[@dharcsynchro4436]

The fact Gozen and Rivalry are legal in Edison and are ruled the exact opposite (you can attempt to summon a monster of a different type/attribute if the previous monster restricting you is gone) and see no play at all really goes to show how bad these cards are ruled otherwise.

[@kuroneko687]

@@soup2504 Because you can't attempt to control a monster that ignores the lock, simple as that. Same scenario as trying to tribute a Vanity's Fiend with a kaiju, even if it would leave the field before the kaiju hits the field, it's just a thing about you not being able to even "attempt" to special summon.

[@moominfin]

@@kuroneko687 Where on the card does it say that?

[@Kirabetas]

Underrated twitch comment at 7:35 “It’s just Calvinball.”

[@fakename8030]

Back in my day, Pendulums were a weight hung by a string swinging back and forth not some fancy shmancy duel monster card

[@afeathereddinosaur]

Everyone has had that day where they thought Dark Flattop would work as intended but then discovered the properly summon bullshit

[@NerdByAnyOtherName]

Different game but very much in the spirit of this thread, in Magic the Gathering they introduced this mechanic called "Mutate" that looks _kinda_ straightforward on the surface but as soon as you dig just a _little_ deeper it turns into a never ending spiral of nonsense

[@otterfire4712]

Banding and Trample

[@Alkhemia8]

They a reason mutate has only shown up in one set that shit was confusing. The newest set has Decend and descended as two different mechanics and it is annoying as shit but that more a shit name problem since they pretty simple mechanics

[@PrettierNPastel]

​@otterfire4712 see the problem with those keywords is that they actually force you to interact with the weirdly complex damege step rules you almost never think about otherwise

[@otterfire4712]

@@PrettierNPastel got into some keyboard fisticuffs a while ago, ignorant on why Trample fails against Banding and various users weren't quite explaining it right. This isn't helped by the fact that the printed text of Trample is poorly worded in the context of how it mechanically works in game. Tl;dw Trample only succeeds if ALL blocking creatures are dead by the resolution of damage. If Banding blocks and attempts to assign all damage to a 1/1 token, just pop the other blockers and Trample will resume.

[@PrettierNPastel]

@otterfire4712 i mean trample is not poorly worded its just the to properly explain it would require more than what you would want to put in remider text. Also the problem is most people dont understand "assigning damage" because its usually just one creature blocking another so it the fact you can do more or less damage to a creature than its toughness doesn't come up

[@Ovasiig]

I had a hard time understanding soft once per turn and hard once per turn when I first started playing. It was weird to me that some cards said “you can only use this effect once per turn” and “you can only use x name effect once per turn.” were such a pain to learn.

[@sunglasgaming635]

That's because "hard" and "soft" are shitty ways to describe what the restriction is.

[@achehex]

@@sunglasgaming635 They are not meant to describe it, they are just a simpler way to name them once you already know how they work. Its just part of the larger unofficial vernacular of the game like garnet and bricking.

[@SahnigReingeloetet]

It‘s pretty easy actually. If it says „Once per turn: do this“ it‘s soft. If it says „Do this. You can only do this once per turn.“ it‘s hard.

[@itsjustme-_-9621]

0:26 that one guy in twitch chat is just like me fr

[@Pooepw]

i am just now realizing that i was totally confused about why my dark world monsters would not activate when they were discarded for cost as a kid playing the yugioh games on ps2 and psp

[@torakandwolf6786]

That sounds ridiculous

[@SakuraAvalon]

The introduction of Dark World's, is how I first learned the distinction of discarding for cost and for effect.

[@Zanji1234]

@@torakandwolf6786 well... no clear card text to see WHAT is a cost and what not really made some problems "back then"

[@DevastatingWarrior]

Something I had a big problem learning was "negating an effect" vs "negating an activation". One of my favorite cards was Witch's Strike and trying to figure out what exactly counts as a legal activation requirement for it was hell when I first started MD.

[@chaosgallade2331]

This kind of thing also applies to Branded Lost. It can stop the opponent from using effects that negate the activation in response to Fusion Summons, but not those that negate effects which is why Branded Fusion can still be Ashed even if you have Branded Lost out.

[@Skasaha_]

That's not even the only two ways of negating something, there's also "negating a card's effects", like Imperm and Effect Veiler, and the very rare 'negate on resolution' type effect that doesn't need to be chained.

[@takodachi1239]

I remember coming back to Yugioh and came across Guru control deck. No one I know has been able to explain the 4th effect of final battle. What do you mean activated effect cannot be negated? Does that affect Ash or Baron or Judgement or Imperm.

[@DrAiPatch]

​@@takodachi1239you forgot skill drain..... Yes the 4th effect of final battle makes Skill drain one-sided.

[@xCorvus7x]

@@Skasaha_ How are Imperm and Effect Veiler any different to what you think OP has in mind when they mention negating an effect? That's exactly what Veiler and Imperm do. Even Vera, the Vernusylph Goddess, and other such negating effects still simply negate the effect of a card (instead of its activation).

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

0:07 Huh. This was actually creative 6:21 "When a Monster hits the Field" Rulling Shenanigans

[@ui264]

This was the best Yu-Gi-Oh content I've seen in a long time. (500+ watched just this year) ・I've YEARNED for more rants about the stupid rulings and interactions of this game. This delivered.

[@mitchellhuffstickler8730]

You missed the hardest card of all- Hard Armor: A living Suit of Armor that attacks enemies with a Bone-Jarring Attack

[@randommaster06]

Yugioh mechanics work like pre-1999 Magic cards. Lots of spell speeds, priority windows, the chain chain blocking,, flavor affecting mechanics, undefined card interactions, it's all there.

[@AnRuixuan]

Honestly, the fact that I've been following modern Yugioh for 3.5 years, and playing Master Duel for nearly 2, and yet when I play Master Duel I'm *still* learning about random niche interactions, has pretty much solidified the fact that I don't think I'll ever be ready to play outside of an automatic simulator.

[@SerpiaXerma]

As someone who has recently begun paper play, don't worry. The only difference is that instead of being kept up at night by unintuitive mechanical misplays, you experience fridge-horror moments where you realise you hard cheated completely out of your mind. What do you mean Cartesia can only fusion summon level 8 or higher fusion monsters?

[@swisschese1323]

I've played MD for about 2 years and I have playef Yugioh since the dawn of DL. I still can't figure out how half of the pendulum thingy works, I have about 25 decks in MD and non of them are pendulum.

[@22Vnnami]

@@SerpiaXermaTo be fair, it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the game if we lost all of the Duelist Kingdom era quirks. The misplays and cheats due to card text length make us all main characters.

[@SicDrykEst]

One that really threw me is that an opponent's Black Garden forces *you* to summon a token to your opponent's field when you summon a monster, which means it immediately locks you out of all of your "you cannot summon except X this turn" effects

[@Rahnonymous]

I'm still learning new things, and I've been playing since early XYZ era. The rules are always subject to change, and often are

[@bingo36able]

On the subject of cards "remembering" details about their summon, I love that this is even a thing in Rush Duels, and there's a whole episode of Yuhi defeating a guy whose 3600 beater gets flipped face-down and then face-up, resets to 0 ATK since it forgot it's summoning condition, and the opponent rages at his friend after this happens while Yudias is still confused by the end of the episode.

[@Abosoria]

It's also my first time hearing that you can activate gamma with a monster on the field. This game is insane

[@SuperSox97]

I understand why that interaction would happen that way (technically, you have no monsters on the field at that point), but that's just horrendously unintuitive

[@michaelgrey1503]

I get it, but only by applying Magic mechanics to understand and even then it's not something I ever would have considered before now. See, in Magic, when you cast a spell (the same thing as activating a spell or trap card or summoning a monster) the spell is still on the stack until it has resolved and does not count as being on the battlefield. The same is true of the summoning of monsters. You have to wait until your opponent has decided it can resolve before it even hits the field.

[@Shemegory]

Yeah I completely forgot about that interaction, I did however remember that if you solemn a flip summoned Sangan, it doesn't get the search since it's in the mystery zone between face down on the field and face up on the field.

[@Shadow8332]

Technically the monster is not on the field, but on the field in a limbo summon sense. But yeah, pretty interesting to learn. Which makes no sense why you can't make a new monster from monsters on field with gozen up. Since that interact is a period where you control no monsters, allowing you to summon from the ed with monsters you already control would be the exact same sense.

[@suetyhercules7717]

​@@michaelgrey1503I definitely think the reason it's harder to understand in yugioh is because you have limited board space. Having to commit a spot on board but it still not being summoned is weird

[@joewoloson1224]

I'm surprised no one said missing timing. That's something that feels more like an oversight that's now too late to fix rather than a deliberate design choice. For me, i still get confused about activated and non activated effects.

[@chaosgallade2331]

Activated effects are marked by a (semi) colon, whether it’s a cost (like Super Polymerization making you discard a card to use it) or an effect that activates when the condition is met (like when Normal Summoning Aleister lets you get Invocation from the Deck). Non activated effects are continuous effects that lack colons; an example is The Fabled Unicore, whose one sided omni negate effect is a Continuous/non activated effect because it doesn’t have any colons.

[@hyperlink6547]

Missing the timing is the weirdest shit. I *still* am not 100% sure how it works and avoid playing decks where it can as much as possible.

[@sushiroll3795]

I'm just legitimately confused as to why exactly Konami decided to make this distinction between optional "if" and "when" effects in the first place. Like, could they not have just put "if" for optional effects and "when" for mandatory ones?

[@dharcsynchro4436]

@@sushiroll3795 i believe the trigger timing missing started from some old FTK that Konami ruled illegal because some card would miss its activation timing due to the optional when. In regards to the optional mandatory thing, we do have both optional and mandatory Ifs/Whens and they have functional applications in the game so it's a hard ask

[@sushiroll3795]

@dharcsynchro4436 I love this game to death, but dear god do I hate it sometimes.

[@rarehatmd2120]

By far the worst is when a card has 2 possible ways to resolve its effect and your opponent can interact with the one you don't intend to do. As a ninja player in MD RN the only concrete example I can remember is with ninjitsu notebook of mystery, which can either set a ninja card from grave or deck, and even if you choose to set one from grave your opponent can ash it because you *could* summon from deck. I think I remember doomking balerdroch also being affected by this in some way or another. Another one of those rules that seems made up if someone explains it to you for the first time

[@frankyquilavafireblast895]

I get it as a branded player I would remember at the beginning I would specifically only use material from my hand and then cue my surprise reaction when someone would ash it Then my indignant reaction when my buddy who is a judge for several years, explained it to me that even if you’re not using materials from your deck, you still can use materials, so therefore, ash blossom can be chained to it

[@ArcheTelos]

Reminds me of that time I negated Macro Cosmos with Rulkallos lmao

[@Dominator150395]

@@frankyquilavafireblast895 I had the same issue with Shaddoll Fusion. To be fair, during the window when Ash can be activated, you *haven't* decided yet if you're gonna use material from the Deck or not.

[@roberthorn9915]

One thing that i see trip up new players is a continuous spell/trap needing to stay on the field to resolve it effect despite it never being stated on the card it self. Its the one time that MST actually negates

[@pickyphysicsstudent201]

Also niche cards like Rampage with Eyes of Blue because it has to banish everything else (including itself) so if it leaves the field, it doesn't resolve. MST can negate it.

[@DrAiPatch]

Ah yes i remember having to explain to my opponent why fliping their monster facedown while crackdown was attached to it not only meant i didn't give it back to them even if crackdown left the field but its effects were no longer negated.

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G O_0

[@Raminator243]

When I started playing Gemini Synchro in Edison format, learning all the Gemini rulings was a nightmare 😅

[@TheNewblade1]

I remember we found a dark world deck sitting on the table alone. It had lighting vortexs in it lol.

[@DarkeLourd]

That would have actually been pretty normal in 2005. Lightning Vortex was just a good card at the time the first Dark Worlds were printed.

[@SquibbyJ]

The number bit is so real. I make sure decks I play have 1 designated big guy combo to out specific things/otk, and beyond that stats don’t matter at all

[@ovelhadogelo]

I love when a card forces the opponent to take an action, like Vepartu putting a rule that "the opponent has to send the attacked monster to the GY". If it's an online game - Master Duel, for example - they scoop thinking the game is bugged or they're facing a cheater/hacker that didn't let them activate the monster's GY effect. In the end, they were the one sending the monster to the GY, not you, so they won't trigger any "if this monster is sent to the GY by an opponent's card effect". Or just equipping Fog Blade to a unoutable monster and they lose all their unoutable effects.

[@SahnigReingeloetet]

How does the last one work. I define un-outable as either unaffected or untargetable, neither of which Fog Blade works against.

[@hallucigenia7149]

Gozen Match says you can't summon a different attribute when at no point would two different attributes be on your field, Plushfire activates as a monster when it's a spell, and Sacred Garunix activates in the hand even though it activates in the Graveyard. The lesson is if you find a judge's lost wallet at a tournament, don't bother trying to give it back to them. No matter what you say they'll say "It's not my wallet."

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G XD

[@ratioed1438]

There's a special place in hell for whoever made Mystical Refpanel

[@wind64a39]

Cards like Union Carrier mean that removing Pendulum Summoning would not get rid of that confusion.

[@Ramsey276one]

Oh DEAR...

[@roguetheundying397]

Can we get a compilation of MBT and Dire bickering at each other like an old married couple

[@GH-un9uz]

To me the hardest part of learning YGO wasnt a specific rule, it was remembering what cards i still had to pay attention to. As an example, literally the entire eldlich archetype does a thing in play, OR you can banish from grave to do another thing. Eldlich himself has an in-hand effect and an in-grave effect. It feels like every card has a part 2 on the end that does a second thing when the card is in a different zone, and you have to juggle them all in your head

[@H1_R3Z]

I struggled with this so much when I first picked up Witchcrafters. All of the spells have unique effects on activation OR can be brought from grave to hand, but the recursion effect can only happen if you didn't activate the card that turn, so you have to pay special attention to which cards are coming back that turn and which have to wait until your next turn, but they're all hard once-per-turns so even if one should be coming back that turn, it won't if you play another copy of it that turn.

[@matthewturner5178]

I’ll just say that there is a reason that Mokuba telling Seto that no one who has ever attempted to learn how to play Duel Monsters has survived is one of the funniest jokes in the abridged series.

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G XD

[@longevityproductions7571]

When you went in depth about face down defense position monsters I nearly croaked off my chair

[@six-eyes4727]

The fact that Macro Cosmos causes Pendulums to be banished is the most frustrating ruling to me. Pendulums are sent from the field to the extra deck. That is their gimmick. But for some reason card effects like Macros override this due to pendulum's mechanics being treated as a lingering effect on an effect monster that can be overwritten. Basically a coinflip ruling that could've gone either way but Konami decided Pendulums deserve less.

[@brankoaime]

Thats the beauty of learing the game on MD. I spend a good chunk of my first couple of month seeing that I couldnt perform action and going "ok, what the fuck is going on and whats the interaction?" And then another number of months going "if I do this, its resolves like that or does it not?" The book of moon example resonated with me in a spiritual level

[@commander950]

Maybe it's just me, but pendulums triggering their monster effects when destroyed as spells makes perfect sense

[@Lord_Phoenix95]

It does. They're treated as Monsters everywhere except the Pendulum Zone but at least some pendulum cards are now saying "Pendulum Monster Cards"

[@manjackson2772]

It's like how if you Brain Control a Mystic Tomato and ram it into something, your opponent gets the search. The effect looks at the state of the card when it activates, not when the destruction happens.

[@Ramsey276one]

Same XD

[@larv23]

I've finally been vindicated for singing "Conjunction Junction" after explaining rulings.

[@hazavair5755]

Targeting versus choosing on resolution, along with sending from field to grave versus destroying. These are the worst because they are the exact same in functions, but mechanical better.

[@esrohm6460]

i remember that when i got into yugioh for real it was the beginning of pend and i was extremely convinced you could pend summon face down fusion/synchro monsters between the levels as the introduction "rules book" said you can summon from extra between levels but at no point mentioned that there is a difference between face down and face up extradeck cards despite being introduced with that set

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

Well, there was, but the waters got muddled due to Pend ED monsters like Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon

[@Ramsey276one]

At the time of Synchro Sneak Preview, a guy with Synchro cards basically TRIED TO RITUAL SUMMON A SYNCHRO at us. He was promptly corrected after we read the Synchro Materials to him. Didn't see him again until after the pack was on sale... XD

[@avatarmufasa3628]

my confusion (and still remains) is how cont spell and field spell effects work in regards to activating their effect or whether theyre "already" on the field, or when to ash as they may have only activated the card but not the effect ot search yet

[@nuhrii3449]

activating a card is playing the card, activating an effect is the effect of the card, when you play a normal spell, you activate the card and the effect simultaneously, this is where card vs effect clauses are important to note for cont and field spells when using a negate; for example ursarctic radiation, its on play effect is put 7 counters on it, the continuous effect is to draw 1 card at the cost of removing a counter each time you special summon from hand or ed, you can only ash if the you try to remove a counter to draw a card, not when the card is activated and not with its end phase effect. you can also negate continuous cards with a search effect by destroying in a chain, like mst can negate heavy forwards effect to search an infintitrack monster when activated, because it is no longer on the field

[@TwistedBOLT]

@@nuhrii3449 It's not a continuous effect, it's an activated trigger effect, it's just not a card activation. A continuous effect would draw you a card without starting a chain. Radiation starts a chain both on its card activation and effect activation. Also continuous spell/trap/field spells need to remain on the field to resolve, they aren't negated if you pop them. Negate is a special keyword that only occurs when you use a card that says "negate". Failing to resolve doesn't mean something is negated.

[@SourceOfBeing]

I've heard somewhere that Yu-Gi-Oh being how it is means it's easier for YGO players to learn other TCG than it is for other TCG players to learn YGO.

[@Ramsey276one]

Probably true I had tried other games earlier...

[@Vuohenmor]

MBT and/or Dire is right, I should always play 2-3 book of moon, Imperm, Compulse Evac, Pot of Desires, Kaiju, and Ash Blossom in every deck and in every format and just get over my skill issue. Thank you once again for the enlightenment.

[@redshirt8611]

2:18 when I first came across this ruling, I didn’t get how it worked until the other player said, “think of it like the monster tripped on a banana peel and broke their back, so they can’t get back up and help you beat me”

[@jcplays5831]

2:35 I have tripped up so many people by tributing a face down insect for beetrooper atlus’s effect. That’s one of the big reasons I run krawler soma in my beetrooper build

[@GeneralNickles]

The thing that utterly vexed me more than anything else was fucking "missing timing". I discovered this train wreck of a mechanic when i attempted to activate the effect of a yang zing monster that i destroyed with Generation Shift. Because Generation shift searches another copy of the monster it destroys, it causes the yang zings to miss timing. Stupidest fucking mechanic in the entire game.

[@codycarney2311]

Dire is just becoming more and more based. Love the School House Rock clip.

[@cosmicanomaly5370]

Got into Yu-Gi-Oh with Master Duel. The most confusing thing early on was Synchro and Link summoning. These should not be difficult, but MD's tutorial teaches ritual summoning first. In ritual summoning, you can tribute monsters whose levels exceed the level of the ritual that you're summoning. You cannot do this for Synchros or Links. Took me forever to get into my head that I can't use Apollousa and 1 other monster to make Accesscode.

[@chaosgallade2331]

Synchro Summons are almost like Rituals; Synchro Monsters don't need specific cards to Summon, but the materials' Levels must exactly add up to the Level monster you're trying to Summon and at least 1 of them must be a Tuner monster (although Red Nova Dragon, Red Supernova Dragon and the Mannadium Synchros need multiple Tuners to bring them out).

[@porgeporgeporge]

@@chaosgallade2331literally the entire point of the comment you’re replying to is that Ritual summons are NOT like Synchros, because you’re generally allowed to exceed the level requirement for a Ritual summon instead of needing it to be exact like with Synchro summoning

[@nuhrii3449]

@@porgeporgeporge only for a lot of older ones, a lot of the newer ones require specific counts. when synchros came out, it was pretty easy to understand as you add the levels together and have a specific monster type, then you can summon the monster if those monsters meet the requirements and the total levels match, its not a difficult concept to understand if you played blackjack before, except youre going backwards basically

[@TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

Isn’t another ritual rule that if you have the exact level required in hand you have to tribute that card?

[@dhanyl2725]

For ritual, it depends on the ritual spell card. One might ask for an exact level, another might forgive you going beyond

[@rairaidani]

No one mentioned conditions (not being effects) and unclassified effects? Like, what do you mean it's unclassified? CLASSIFY IT.

[@BlanekdCheque]

I could not understand Ruby Carbuncle during the Crystal Beast event deck since it did not seem to trigger. Honestly though, the hard part of YGO is finding the optimal plays, or even ending properly. The cards are fairly intuitive, but you have access to basically every card in your deck in a lot of hands, so it's knowing how to play it out. Plus, knowing what interaction your opponent has, and how to play around/through it to win the game. That's what makes it hard, even to experienced players since a very normal thing to do is to look up a deck guide rather than creating your own combo lines.

[@sizzl75]

You can Mechaba eldlich's hand>GY effect, but it doesn't get banished because...reasons. So coooooooool what a fun intuitive game

[@Lord_Phoenix95]

That's because it's no longer where it resolves.

[@Billy_Wyatt]

Definitely chains and a monster remembering its effect/summon condition was the hardest task for me to learn. Good thing is that I learned it but the only that I mess up sometimes is when I play pendulums.

[@supernova9361]

For me, the If vs When effects messed me up a lot; like here i go thinking i got this cool combo going and then someone say "you missed timing, doesn't work" and i'm sitting here going "huh?"

[@four-en-tee]

Yugioh is my favorite form of reading exercise

[@DeityofDestiny]

ngl, I'd be kinda interested in seeing an experiment of "yugioh but with the stack instead of chain links", just to see how deckbuilding/gameplay changes at all without chain blocking which would obviously need to be done on duelingbook

[@SuperSayianWarrior]

So put MTG rules into Yugioh, making cards like Ash and Gamma effectively like the ZW from the Utopia support? Yeah no

[@DeityofDestiny]

@@SuperSayianWarrior nobody's forcing you to play dumb community alt formats

[@hefdef9961]

@@DeityofDestiny i am.

[@xDarknessRikux]

One of the most annoying things I have to deal with is with erratas and the effect is completely changed. Amorphactor pain is the best example where it changes the card to a "on summon effect" to a condition from changing the card text to having a " , " from a " : ". Someone using the old version of the card can easily deceive people with it.

[@sternguard77]

I HATE functional errata. Please Konami, stop changing how cards work I beg of you. Especially the old iconic cards for power level and banlist stuff. Especially when half the time they could just print a new card with a weakened effect and a referential name or something.

[@kichiroumitsurugi4363]

@@sternguard77They actually used to make weaker retrains for that reason at one point, Tradetoad being a weaker Substitoad. Well, they stopped because they figured they had better means of pack filler anyway, and to top it off, the banned cards would get retrains anyway, errata or not, if they were iconic enough (see also: Chaos Emperor Dragon)

[@TheGuyWhoIsSitting]

I’ve watched a lot of people talk about the Pokémon TCG history and no one ever played base set Charizard. Turns out going through all that trouble to try and get four fire energy in a format where energy removal and super energy removal and various other cards are at 4 copies each makes trying to facilitate a monster that needs four energies with no easy way to attach multiple fire energy per turn and needing to discard every time you attack with no way to recur the energy invested isn’t very good.

[@Abunai_Gaming]

Ngl Conjunction Junction unlocked a core memory, i loved School House Rock as a kid, had a DVD with all the songs on it as a kid and I loved listening to them, mostly the number ones

[@DrKappaDelta]

Originally, "negate the activation/summoning" was exclusive for spell speed 3, and that was the whole propuse because the idea of the speel speed 3 was that it acts "before" any actions on the chain even aim to happen (like going back in time). This was a rulling that someone from kinami explain me on a e-mail I sent back in 2004. If you see the card texts on the all cards, the counter traps are the only ones that say negate summon/activation, then someone who did not understand this made a mess in the rulling and here are the consequences.

[@moonlight2870]

As an mtg player, one thing that fucked me up was targeting. In mtg, with veeeeeeeeery rare exceptions, if you choose a target for a spell, it is well, a target and thjngs that cannot be targeted are safe. In yugioh, if the card doesn't specifically say 'target', it doesn't target so you can bypass target immunity. That was wild to me lol

[@matiaspereyra9392]

Imagine when that effect was newish and there were a lot of pre psct cards that hadn't been reprinted so you didn't know what cards targeted and which ones didn't

[@pdg3513]

To me as someone who has tried learning Yu-Gi-Oh a few times. I find it hard to keep track of how each card in your deck and extra deck work together. IE it's hard to remember all the play lines of how one card can lead to several different end boards depending on what you want and it gets worse if your opponent has interruption cards

[@Some._.Random._.Person]

The whole gamma chaining to Dino combo makes me think that yugioh is being played in 3 dimensions, but we can only see a top down view. Like the link card is in the process of being summoned as its dropping down, so it’s not on the board yet and you can just throw gamma under first legally

[@platexproductions]

I just came to the realisation that MBT is the best KZbinr on the platform.

[@lach10211]

The thing I find hardest is that you have to know what every deck does exactly. It's really hard to know what is the best thing to ash or imperm in like 6 different decks.

[@hirukashiro5995]

But this isn't about yugioh being hard lol, this is literally everything in the world ever. Any game, even chess, requires some meta/background knowledge if you want to be better. Any job/occupation requires you to learn adjacent knowledge from your peers (current trend, new tools, etc.). Refusing to get to know the game but want to win in that said game is just whining

[@armitroner]

@@hirukashiro5995 As both a Magic player and a Yugioh player, Magic is WAY better at allowing you to intuit what exactly your opponent is trying to do and where the breakpoints are. The colour system inherently allows you to know approximately what your opponent is up to as soon as they play their first land. In Magic you don't need to memorize specifically where the chokepoint is in 20 different decks and even if you haven't seen a card before you don't need to read an essay to determine how you should interact with something. It's not about refusing to learn, its about the intuitiveness and readability when it comes to decks and archetypes you've never seen before.

[@hirukashiro5995]

@armitroner To be fair you can also use your intuition in YGO as well. Of course the exact optimal choke point for every deck is different, but you can still use your intuition even for new decks. Like when a card read +1 or +2 (pot cards, demise, etc.) you probably need to Ash that most of the time. Or when a card says "special from deck", your YGO intuition immediately tells you that it's probably very strong (most of "special from deck" cards in YGO lead to insane combo) so you also probably need to Ash that. My point is that, you need to study the surrounding meta/background if you want to get better, even in a job, not only in games. There is also intuition taking part in YGO, but there is no other way to be even better w/o learning.

[@samuelheddle]

I think this is by far the biggest beginner challenge in YGO. It's far harder to intuit exactly what a deck's wincon is, especially when a lot of decks use generic wincons eg Accesscode.

[@Merilirem]

@@samuelheddle This is however a problem that is solved by just playing the game. As you see people go for win cons you will be able to see the points at which the win con is on the line.

[@Matchu25]

5:39 awoken a memory inside me from the 4th grade

[@Holothewolfx]

My personal fav that messed with my brain was that MONSTER cards that are attached to an xyz as material still go to the graveyard when detached for the effect of that xyz monster even if your opponent has Dimensional Fissure on the field. Just amazing to see how Yu-Gi-Oh can be hard to understand even if the card your trying to understand is one sentence.

[@dudono1744]

I just learnt today that Xyz monsters keep their materials when flipped face-down

[@Sleepingfishie]

After each of these videos it seems realistic that a dueling school was set up

[@Ragnarok540]

Something I see very often when I play Book of Moon is that people will waste all their targeted negation, like I summon Hanzo, opponent chains Imperm from the hand, I chain Book of Moon, then the opponent chains Effect Veiler. The opponent was technically able to negate Hanzo, but since it will resolve after Book of Moon has resolved, it will be face down and won't remember it was negated. Book of Moon can also be used to resolve effects while on Skill Drain.

[@TheWizardMus]

Oddly enough the Stack in MtG was something i could not understand but Chains make perfect sense to me

[@codyhanson1344]

chain blocking is what makes in complicated/frustrating. Also, I once was told I wasn't allowed to "chain" my torrential tribute to someone's monster summon because summoning a monster doesn't start a chain, yet torrential tribute says I have to activate it when a monster is summoned. To this day I'm still confused as to what they were trying to get at.

[@TheWizardMus]

@@codyhanson1344 yeah that's a different issue than chain blocking that's because TT is a "when" effect and so if for whatever reason the monster summoning itself isn't the last thing to happen in its effect, TT misses it's opportunity to activate. Super obtuse and almost always a weird one when it comes up. Chain Blocking is rather if I have 2 effects that activate at the same time I can choose the order they go in(example in one of my decks Nephtys, i have Disciple and Sacred Pheonix's floating effects both happening in the standby phase and you cant respond to whatever is Chain 1 because its already being 'responded to' by the Chain 2 effect(say I CL 1 Disciple CL2 Phoenix, you wouldn't be able to use Ash on Disciple's effect)

[@dhanyl2725]

Yea, having too used to ygo's chains, mtg's stack sounds trippy as hell

[@TheWizardMus]

@@dhanyl2725 I distinctly recall playing a game of magic where they were trying to explain the stack to me and because I had a monster with an on destruction effect after a board wipe naturally that would be a second stack but apparently not. Doesn't help that for some ungodly reason the only way people around me play Magic are massive 6 person duels where I can't see anyone's cards.

[@sadrobot5501]

My definition is: The Stack is like the Chain, BUT while there are "Chain Links" on The Stack, EVEN AFTER SOME CHAIN LINKS HAVE RESOLVED OR WAITING TO BE RESOLVED, other spells and abilities can still enter the stack/trigger. Absurd Example: Imagine a full power Tear mirror where Agido is like Chain Link 6 (just to say anything). Agido resolves and you mill Fairy Tail Snow.... NOW YOU CAN ACTIVATE SAID SNOW WHILE THE OTHER 5 CHAIN LINKS ARE WAITING TO RESOLVE. That's what The Stack would be.

[@Zanji1234]

i can remember when a german judge (WAY back before IOC even came out) made a several pages long PDF File with all rule and card clarifications that he and other judges got from several sources. Things like Waboku activating when two monsters with the same atk battle and stuff or when Michizure triggers. It was several pages long and considering there were only a few sets out (in EU even less) it was ... extensive. (i think even the "facedown monsters for fusion was later included.. and yeah this is fucked up) na OH GOD YEAH DARK WORLD CARDS and "discard for costs" we had so many discussions with kids at our locals that even some parents thought we cheat the kids just to get wins.

[@LadyTsunade777]

The absolute #1 biggest problem with Yu-Gi-Oh the fact that there is no codified absolute comprehensive set of rules that handle any possible situation. Magic the Gathering has such a rulebook, where it handles literally every single situation that could ever happen in any game, and anyone can easily just pull up a section on what happens; meanwhile in Yu-Gi-Oh, people have to pull up some obscure ruling by some 16 person locals judge 12 years ago in some backwater town to determine if player A could activate card effect X when player B does Y action. Floodgate effects simultaneously looking at the board state both before an attempted summon _and_ after and disallowing it if _either_ meets the floodgate is also really unintuitive and bad. If Rivalry of Warlords is face-up, it _shouldn't_ stop a player from normal summoning a Purrely and linking it off into Linkuriboh for example. "Missing the timing" is objectively a bad thing and should be entirely removed from the game. Just say all "When" effects now work exactly the same as "If" effects. Simple as. Monster cards having to "remember they were properly summoned", and the fact they "forget" if they move from one non-field zone to another non-field zone, is also bad and should be removed. Cards or effects being unable to be activated if you can't fully fulfil all the resolution effects is also dumb, especially when it's a search effect and you no longer have any copies of any searchable card in deck, then it just becomes "you can't even activate that card because you don't have any targets, even though it's looking in a hidden information zone and _neither_ player knows if there are any left for this to be a legal action". Chains being set in stone and having to fully resolve before anyone can do anything new is very annoying to learn for anyone coming from MtG (where the stack is dynamic and can be responded to and added on to at any point in its resolution). It also doesn't help that there's situations like card effects triggering from events in a chain, but because chains are set in stone the newly triggered effects have to go on a new chain immediately after instead.

[@DungeonMarcio]

Man, knowing darkworld discard cost vs effect back in the day was such a pain. It brought me flashbacks!

[@J3Puffin]

I learned YuGiOh while I was learning to read, so I’ve never been new to it in the same way. Still some things I never learned until I started watching YugiTubers

[@SHRIMBO]

One of thse days i hope we get an intro like from disney channel "Im Alex Cimo, and your watching the MBT channel" and then he draws in the air T W I N K

[@fmcypher4823]

I have a relationship with yugioh through scraps of anime, the movie on VHS, and games against my dad when I was 5. When I got back into yugioh because Master Duel came out, I was pretty excited. I was older. I had learned a fighting game. I felt like I could really sit down and learn whatever I put in front of me. I pulled some packs and IMMEDIATELY fell in love with a deck: Dark World. COST vs EFFECT WAS THE SINGLE MOST FRUSTRATING THING IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. I literally just had to google card databases and rulings and what cards actually fucking work in a Dark World strategy. Turns out, pretty much JUST Dark World cards and that one card that’s literally more broken than Pot of Greed… I just want Dark World Graceful Charity. You can give it a shit drawback. You can make it as archetype locked as you possibly can, just PLEASE BRO. Danger! Graceful Trap for Dark World? It would be cool… please don’t let my deck die… It broke my heart learning that my deck is ass simply because it’s the cool things I like: graveyard-based, dark attribute, fiend deck. When I found Dangers it made me really happy, but then I learned Dark World plays well under Skill Drain, and I immediately stopped optimizing it. It started to feel weird to need Dangers to really play my favorite boys. Then the support got announced, and I was free from the clutches of folklore. Playing pure Dark World and being able to brew with some more shitty fiend pile type Dark World decks has been fun. Part of me does wish I could brew something that wasn’t hot ass, but there’s a reason that I’m not Jesse Cotton. I’m not even TSX1. I feel like I could be better, but I don’t really want to be. I love playing games as a skilled shitter. I love messing around. My dream deck is probably like Dark World Necrofear w/ a dash of nurse burn. That or Skull Servant or Gren Maju. I love beefin up a boy: I’d play equip spells if that didn’t mean playing specifically Infernoble. I don’t even like warriors that much tbh, but specifically Infernoble just… eh, for me. Guess I’ve always liked the monsters or at least like… magic people… like Mr. Volcano or Dark Magician. Anyways, one long-ass comment later… yeah, cost vs effect is dumb and I don’t like it, also maybe more Dark World support. I’d personally love another fusion to go into or some… grace.

[@KnightmarePhoenix_official]

Really happy I got my start on Duel Links rather than IRL, so I could have most of the really tough rulings figured out by a computer. I love this game, but I would have dropped it immediately if I started with the physical TCG, especially coming from Pokémon where I'm pretty sure a three-year-old could learn to play pretty well.

[@outerzevin1366]

I got into YGO with darkworld in 2008 and became VERY GOOD at knowing cost vs effect of cards.

[@achehex]

"Will your effect still happen if I book of moon my own monster" is one of the things in yugioh that I love when it works how I planned cus I feel like a genius, and I hate when it doesn't cus I just feel like an idiot. In theory I could just learn the difference, but I won't.

[@memesalldayjack3267]

0:25 i like someone finally saying they acknowledge the stupidity of these reactions and how effective they are for the algorithm

[@xdragoonzero0]

Imo, spell speed is basically a relic from when it really only mattered for S/T cards. Speed 1 : Monster Effects, Spell Effects Speed 2 : Traps, Quick Effects (monster or quick-play) Speed 3 : Counter Traps Today all of the above could easily be described as something like; "Only Quick effects (reworded to be a general thing for quick-effects on monsters, quick-play spells, and all traps) can be activated in response to another action/activation/whatever. The only cards that can activate in response to to Counter Traps are other Counter Traps."

[@_Vengeance_]

Activating Shadow Spell in the Damage Step is always fun (we mostly duel with videogames but sometimes use our crappy real cards). "What do you mean my monster's attack continues? Shadow Spell clearly says my monster can't attack and it really says attack, not declare an attack!". Anyway, there are also cases where the rulebook makes things unnecessarily complicated. All that Spell Speed stuff? Throw it in your brain's recycle bin! Spell Speed 1 can never chain in the first place by their very nature (good luck chaining Pot of Greed to Raigeki despite both being Spell Speed 1), and Spell Speed 3 is only Counter Traps and nothing else. So the entire ruling can be condensed to "only Counter Traps can chain to Counter Traps" (exceptions like The Fabled Unicore are not handled by the Spell Speed ruling either, so you really lose out on nothing. Oh, and that example is immediately another example of what makes the game complicated).

[@enlongjones2394]

Gotta love TCBOO rulings. If you have a spellcaster monster on the field, and you send it to the GY as material to link summon a spellcaster monster, at what point in that process do you control more than 1 spellcaster at the same time?

[@Infinite8blue]

TCBOO you can not attempt to summon another monster of the same type of you already control that type. But you can still tribute set a monster of the same type because it will be facedown. Facedown cards do not have types. Then here comes fusion summoning

[@potatoexe5410]

​@@Infinite8blue Facedown cards do not have types until they do when you are using them for costs. Fun game right?

[@TwistedBOLT]

@@potatoexe5410 > Facedown cards do not have types Unless they are your cards and you're using them as a tribute then they magically do... because reasons.

[@danha3107]

Honestly, concept of spell speed makes perfect sense to me, like of course you don't want every effect to be stackable/chainable to every other effect. The classifications of different effects and how there's not much of an explicit tell for which kind a card's effect is, is the actual hard part

[@almeerok7950]

I feel the pain of trying to figure out how Gozen Match and TKBOO style floodgate effects could stop me from summoning monsters while under Zombie World. My brain would screech, "They're all Zombies anyways so why can't I Summon a new Zombie!" In Magic it would be the equivalent of something like Phyrexian Censor which says "Players cannot cast more than one non-Phyrexian spell per turn." However if you play a Maskwood Nexus which says "Creatures you control are every creature type. The same is true for creature spells you control and creature cards you own that aren't on the battlefield." Then you can cast as many as you like. Magic is not without its problems like Conpanion and Banding are things that exist and they're both problems in their own ways.

[@luanarafaela5237]

Yes, and this makes the game so interesting, we fell dumb and smart at the same time

[@Jolfgard]

4:20 Pokemon's Standard is a rotating format and there is no endorsed format right now where base set Charizard is legal, let alone good.

[@chillwave8809]

I’ve been playing since the start, still hate having to figure out “when” and “Timing” effects.

[@OizenX]

One I struggled with were cards effects that magically just know to do a different thing. With how obnoxiously specific yugioh wording can be about some things, its weird to me that Extra Deck Monsters aren't immune to Compulsory Evacuation Device as they cannot go to the hand, but the card magically just knows to return to the Extra deck. Why yes when I played as a kid this lead to my friends thinking you had to put the fusion monster in your hand and treat it like a tribute summon to get it back out.

[@Loonkleclip]

Random different fight appearance, literally the biggest vanguard creator just randomly in a video

[@yoshiiscool2002]

I wish they would create a new trap category called something like “restrict” which is a category for traps that acts like flood gates and each player can only have one active face up.

[@randomprotag9329]

it would need some extra design stuff with putting a worse resriction on you and a mentinence cost.

[@Summer_Tea]

The damage step intricacies always trip people up. I remember when Bujins first came out and literally everyone in most tournaments thought I was cheating with Bujingi Crane. Also, you can use any counter trap during the damage step, but the only regular spell/trap you can use during the damage step is if it specifically modifies atk/def. But then there's weird exceptions like Reverse Trap, which says to reverse all atk/def modifications during the turn. That *can't* be played during the damage step, even though it modifies atk/def, because apparently it's just casting an.... "enchantment" over the battlefield that causes atk/def to reverse, but isn't doing so directly...

[@HasteKing18]

I'll be honest my favorite thing about the Twitter threads is the title cards. This one was peak Dire. 😂

[@memesalldayjack3267]

i remember struggling to remember so many different effects, "Psy-frame lord omega" was the 1st card i was like "wait, he has another effect?" when does he come back? when does it return a banished card? and he can return a card and itself from the grave? why does he have so many effects?!

[@thefilodough8066]

What confused me the most were monster cards that had 'when' and 'if' sent to grave effects. I remember not being able to use dupe frog to search after tributing over it and when shaddolls came out, I thought they couldn't either after fusing.

[@apocrypha5363]

I can't wait until Yu-Gi-Oh is out of beta and they get rid of dumb bugs like "missed timing" for the full release.

[@BionicmeLoL]

I was hugely tripped up by a combination of these a while back. I wasn't able to send a pendulum monster on my field to the graveyard for cost, as pendulums don't go to the graveyard from the field, but under macro cosmos they still get banished instead of being sent to the graveyard or extra deck? The answer is "costs must be paid in full" and "MC and pendulums do the same thing but MC takes priority over base rules"