When Did "Modern" Yu-Gi-Oh Actually Begin?

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[@Sleepy0173]

My theory is that casual play had a geneneral guideline that went loose very slightly every passing generation of the game like so: DM era had a generally slow pace where you often had to set cards to make use of FLIP effects or were tied to your Normal Summon of the turn, while removal was specific as +0s, or -1s when chainable. You needed time and advantage both to generate a power play really. I always think of Magical Dimension where you spend 3 cards to end in a high Level Summon from the hand, but if you do it when the opponent has a monster to pop it becomes just a -1, and if you intercept some other play it can climb to +0. GX era kept the same advantage investment in cards but allowed players to spend them a little more quickly. This would mean more glass-canon scenarios if one went for like a turn 1 Flame Wingman, but competitively speaking pacing yourself with advantage management was still king... the casual but cool option of speed up a play was there though.... also, archetypes restricted plays more. It makes sense to happen gen 2 since gen 1 proviced enough of a cushion of generic stuffs to play with. 5DS era decided to keep the GX speed potential mostly, but it upped the ability to make future plays. In a GX era play you'd have a big boss and that's that. In a 5DS era play you'd end with a similarly big boss but the resources would often be good enough for a future "half play" and the concept of setup became more important like so. You often had stuff like a Level Eater, Plaguespreader, Quibolt Hedgehog, Spore, and things like that which will be back as part of a new Synchro but never without an extra push from your hand/field resources. ZeXal era pushed boundaries, introducing effects that directly Summoned from the deck more often, and making searching effects generally a must for efficiency. Inzektors, Wind Ups, Madolche, Heraldics, Tour Guide. They wanted to get away from GY as a focus and they wanted a different source of Summons to fill a new niche.... 5DS support made adding small levels super flexible but nothing could put multiple high levels on board well enough to warrant spending them in Rank 5+ Xyzs so it was kind of a genius change of direction. Arc V went a bit more overboard now... The game essentially took the previous power level and said "hey what if we don't lose card advantage over our plays, always having a ton of toolbox options? It just exchanged it for a very marked tempo one had to avide with, be it hard OPT stuff or P-Summon being OPT in general.... we see it not just in Pendulums but Performage Clown always comes back, Shaddolls, Burning Abyss, Nekroz, Yang Zings, Soul Charge, they all can refill your hand or field as they play, not even Dragon Rulers were that efficient at concerving advantage. ZeXal and Arc V were very much turned into "Modern day" and I recall them more consistently left older decks in the dust generally, while the Synchro era you could still see people playing GX and DM themes against the new stuff.... if it wasn't an FTK generally things were more moderate than it might seem... lack of common searches in a lot of decks and only bringing out 1 or 2 Synchros in a turn in a good day. VRAINS then went "what if we stop counting stars and start counting entire monsters?" and well... yeah, that's modern day alright.

[@apsamplifier]

Well-said.

[@calumbishop7082]

And then SEVENS/MR5 came in and said what if we rebooted the whole f***ing game, but left it as Japanese exclusive format, as well as keeping the old format as technically a separate card game but also fixing what many people regarded as the biggest mistake of the VRAINS/MR4 era and making more cards much easier to summon, but also refusing to balance that with the changes previously made during the VRAINS era and thus making some cards (Verte Anaconda, Halq, ect.) painfully broken leading to a board state where LINK's are still outrageously overpowered compared to the other extra deck mechanics. If the 3 year cycle theory is correct we should have MR6 and some major shakeup around April next year for the main card game. The game does need a shakeup, MR5 was fine for a while, but some of the core problems (games that are effectively decided by the going first coin flip, over reliance on one summoning mechanic to the detriment of others, turns that take 10 mins) of the VRAINS/MR4 era are still there. Also bring RUSH Duels westward already Konami, its clear that arguably 60% of the people working on Yugioh in JP are working on that format instead of the old format, so with holding us of it doesn't make any sense.

[@bayar_]

loved reading this

[@jasonrobinson4924]

@@apsamplifier hey Paul just wanted to say I love your videos you got me into floowandereze I love how versatile they are

[@jeffbartley9730]

I completely agree with that but I also still feel and maybe it's just me but when blackwings first came in as one of the best decks in the synchro era is when I think the game started picking up

[@aguy6022]

This is absolutely not the best example ever, but at least it is one i remember from years ago, when i was still playing with my friends. I think the "modern yugioh" era began around the time xyz came out, when monsters started to be designed to be a piece of a puzzle, instead of monsters. To explain myself i can make the example of monsters like parsec, the interstellar dragon. It's a level 8 dragon monster with 800 atk and def. Its effect is that you can normal summon him without tributing, if you control another level 8 monster. The sole purpose of this card is that it's easy to get on the field to use it as a material for an xyz summon of a rank 8 monter, because, let's face it, nobody is going to tribute two monsters for 800 atk. This is what I like to call a "puzzle piece" because it has no other uses other than the one is is created to have. At the same time, it can be used to "cheat" on the xyz summon: if you want to make a rank 8 monster this card is a must have, because every other option is far inferior. This also means that the rank 8 monster you're trying to summon is much more easy to get out, because you don't have to tribute 4 monsters to get on the field two level eight monsters the "usual way". It is a faux cost. And too much strategies are built around this concept to cheat on the costs of the cards or on the limit of summons per turn.

[@bradleytaylor9712]

This. Yugiohh has rules and moderydecks are built to break or bend them whereas older yugioh it was harder cause "archetypes" weren't specifically made to break/bend rules

[@Gatitasecsii]

I agree with you, but I will extend it to synchro monsters. Back when they came out, there were a bunch of tuner/non-tuner monsters that were so utterly useless that nobody would use them if it weren't for the fact that they special summon from the deck the necessary counterpart for a synchro summon.

[@500938ful]

I feel like the moment we started seeing "modern" yugioh was around the time decks like six samurais and infernities came around where they would just dump out a whole bunch of monsters in a single turn and make a board that was hard to break. It slowly got closer during the xyz era and ramped up a lot more by around DUEA format

[@shadowdraqon2479]

U hit the nail on the head. Before Infernity was like summon stratos/machina gearframe/gadgets get the search plus 1 , set traps thats it, or set a face down monster(gravekeeper spy/sangan/battle recruiters like mystic tomato and the x saber thing)

[@shadowdraqon2479]

After 2010 shining darkness was frog FTK, herald + kristya with 4 fairies in hand(cant even lava golem or super poly the herald away since kristya is protecting herald) and Infernity’s 3 counter traps with big synchros

[@shadowdraqon2479]

And six samurai’s triple gateway, which wouldve enabled an FTK if dark strike fighter wasnt banned(six samurai can make dark strike fighter be using kagemusha and grandmaster to synchro into a lvl 7)

[@shadowdraqon2479]

Coincidentally both Infernity and six samurai are the only 2 combo decks that can win the maxx c challenge (special summon 35 times to make the opp deck out via their own maxx c)

[@jacobbalzer8755]

Infernity was also the first deck to start the modern trend of “every good deck gets a Roar and a Rage”. A searchable counter trap and a searchable Icarus Attack.

[@Kestra62]

Honestly shaddols and burning abyss were way ahead of their time, its crazy how these two decks have still bin played for almost seven years and have had their own ups and downs in competitve relvancy

[@abcrx32j]

And Shaddolls just got relevant again with Tearlaments

[@tryfergoodra552]

@@abcrx32j winda got

[@bl00by_]

@@abcrx32j You mean Winda, Shaddolls themselves aren't that great anymore.

[@abcrx32j]

@@bl00by_ Well, you still have to run a couple of them to get to Winda, some of the main deck Shaddolls are still usable, at least for milling

[@brianaguilar8283]

Don’t forget Lightsworns

[@GundaniumColony]

I'd say 2017 was the last time we saw a change in what we think of when we think of the term Modern Yugioh as that was the introduction of links. Mainly because how we play the game now isn't too different compared to back then and power creep hasn't been that crazy since then either. But I think there are distinct points in time where you can see eras of power creep, and the start of those eras would be what I call modern yugioh of those time frames.

[@Slothptimal]

I'd say two major things started this. 1 - Infernities. Negates, endless comboing, setting up a board. 2 - XYZ monsters. Toolbox decks already existed, and they switched from having to force bricks in to make bosses (poly, fusion materials, tuners) to any two guys works. This made boss monsters a lot more generic.

[@REvoLverj98]

Definitely started around 5D's era. Things like dragunities, infernities, synchrons come to mind, and every boss monster nowadays feels like they took inspiration from Quasar (OPT omni negate, big atk boss monster) Edit; also effect veiler paved the way for what future good hand traps were going to be like

[@Jellysfrickingstuff]

I’d say around 2016-17. OTK’s started to become more common place as well as a move away from turn based strategy and setting up your opponent with traps and more towards just killing your opponent with a huge combo. Monster effects started becoming super complex and actually focused into channeling their pilots into specific combos and interactions. in the past, players mostly just had to figure it out. Essentially the rise of huge combos and hand traps that sped up the game and made regular trap cards obsolete

[@MamisNovaClass]

Modern yugioh began with the idea of multi summoning, which started with syncros for me

[@Ghoste616]

Agreed. Synchros were the first time it felt like a new "era" to me. I'd call everything before then old-school.

[@5b352]

I’d say quasar dragon highlights the beginning of modern YGO where a boss monster has a floating effect and a negate. However with quasar, you had to build an entire deck that is built around bringing a single boss monster with a single negate, whereas now your deck isn’t considered as competitive if you can’t bring out several negates disruptions from turn 1. It made YGO built around two types of play: either build a board that has several forms of negates or be able to break a board that has several forms of negates. If you compare this with MTG where there are 5 different colors and each color has different winning strategies. Even within these color there are various winning strategies (for instance the blue color has a negate strategy, bounce strategy, mill strategy, etc.) it really puts into perspective how limited YGO is now when it comes to winning strategies

[@CardGamesTV1]

Nope. Its when Gen z started playing the game.

[@periklisperperis6868]

Thing is getting to the quazar was hard. Its not the negate part its how eazy it is to get to sakd negate

[@5b352]

@@periklisperperis6868 yeah that’s my point, you used to build a whole deck for one negate and no it’s the default to have multiple. My point is that as far as I remember this was the first monester that floats and negates anyrhing

[@TheShatteredskys]

As a Yu-Gi-Boomer who left the game when Xyz monsters became relevant, I have to say the Xyz era was the beginning of what we consider to be modern Yu-Gi-Oh. Synchros felt like a progression from fusions, no you didn't need a specific spell card anymore, but you did need to do some math and build your deck around having these new tuner monsters in there, similar to how you would build a deck around having polymerization or it's constituents. Xyz monsters were the first inkling of "warm bodies are resources", though small by current standards, the ability to just stick two same leveled monsters together was insane, and opened the door and stepped into the world of "solitaire" Yu-Gi-Oh we have today. But I'm a boring old man so who knows!

[@aldovk6681]

I'm bored yet not that old but I 100% agree with you

[@TheShinblast]

Agreed 100%. I feel like Synchro was, as you say, a "new" Fusion summons. It still needs some calculations and definitely hard to do. Xyz on the other hand, was much easier to do and basically a free effect cost by detaching something.

[@Ser--]

I was going to say it as a joke, but so many replies have essentially been "modern yugioh is after I quit".

[@TheShinblast]

@@Ser-- not necessarily tho, but I get what you mean. Yu-Gi-Oh to us was always that piece of childhood we wanted but never get. I always feel XYZ is the modern Yu-Gi-Oh, but I didn't quit at XYZ, it's after D rulers that the game feels not fun anymore, to me at least 😂

[@periklisperperis6868]

@@lethalButters tribute summons were still a thing in the synchro era with monarchs being played in stuff like synchro heroes that were using diva at the time. Its not that the summoning mechanic was forgotten its that konami gave nothing worth tribute summoning. Monarchs were the peak of tribute summoning till dracos came out

[@OurDarkGoldenHero]

Modern Yugioh began when Fusions and maybe even Synchrons got powercrept. Think about it; Xyz and especially Link summoning really simplified the older mechanics and really sped up the game. Why spend up to 3 cards for a fusion to get 1 card when you can summon bare minimum 1 monster, get an effect off its summon, and then turn that monster into a Link Monster and profit? Obviously the summoning mechanics aren't the sole reason for modern yugioh, but I think it's one of the reasons.

[@KevinTangYT]

On top of that, monsters that set up themselves. Rescue Cat in X-Sabers, Tour Guide of the Underworld started that trend as a self contained Rank 3, which then turned to Rescue Rabbit for Dino Xyz that started off powerful blanket negation effect. Six Sam started the concept of completely flooding the field with no restriction when powered by Gateway of Six. Modern Yugioh started around Shadoll and Atlanteans came out when cards have utility both on the field and when used as a "cost" and monsters started having field and grave effects by default as opposed to specific floaters. It ruins the concept of card advantage

[@NeostormXLMAX]

i am still adamant that xyzs should have required tuners or perhaps unions to summon, or perhaps a secondary type that was required. I always felt it was unfair how hard it was to summon synchros vs links and xyzs. and links don't even require levels at all like wtf? if i was the designed, i would make links balanced by requiring monsters to match the attack points, in order to summon links. similar to meteoris drytron. instead of using levels to summon, it would use attack points. especially since links only had attack, also i don't get why links don't have levels, they had every reason to, there was no point in not having them, just because you're summon type doesn't need levels doesn't mean it can get rid of it. for example fusions don't need levels to summon but they still have levels

[@gollygeegoosie7211]

Modern yugioh for me is when the synchro mechanic was released. It's completely changed the game and started the massive combos you see to this day. The trend of having the extra deck become essential to high level play started here. Prior, the extra deck was mostly a novelty for certain decks. Synchros changed how you had to think about deck building.

[@sirgrizzlypfote6369]

Exactly man.. synchros made main deck just a gimmick to summon extra deck monsters... and this is boring especially when every card is completely generic.. main deck is now refered to engines and thats the sad part

[@bensdm3687]

@@sirgrizzlypfote6369 no Just no

[@user-ms5mt7xs1i]

I would divided these into 1.Pre-Master Rules Era(Before Synchro) 2.Post-Master Rules Era(Synchro and XYZ) 3.Renovation Era(Pendulum) 4.Modern Era(Link)

[@SuperNickid]

@ ปัณณธร ประชากุล you forgot one during the start of the link summoned area Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz when summoned from the Extra deck where force to only used one Extra monster zone, or a main monster zone a link monster points to and to summoned a new one from the extra deck when you do not have a link monster required to used the one that occupied the space as material, if the monster as been taken control the one who took control of it place it in the main monster, and if it return back control it goes to your main monster zone, so it does free a space that way also, and card effect that move card to another zone, if it does affect the Extra monster zone, and Trigger effect would still activated, if they move from trigger location before starting a chain, that was only in TCG Eu and OCG. A Trigger effect that activated by leaveing the field would still activated if it specificly return to the deck. And monster trap while they where monster they still occupied a spell and trap card zone. Then on April 1, 2020, they change it so that fusion, synchro, Xyz monster are no longer oblige to used the Extra monster zone when summoned from the Extra deck. Trigger effect that leave trigger location before starting chain does not activated for TCG Eu and OCG, TCG A. Was already like this. Trigger effect that trigger when leaving the field will not activated if they are return to the deck, and monster trap while they are monster they no longer take a space in the spell and trap card zone, this does not count monster trap that only become monster from the graveyard, because does one when they are summoned as monster they where never counted as trap card while summoned that way.

[@youtubeuser6725]

Right? I feel like synchro is when they started pushing the boundaries. Gx was no different than duel monsters except emphasizing fusion monsters. 5ds was the first to experiment new summoning mechanics

[@lucasalarcon3230]

Is pendulum really renovation? Pendulum era is for me when xyz and synchro peaked is more like innovation era and also there is only a few pend that were meta and the most broken plays we're xyz boss monster from zexal era

[@monkfishy6348]

Synchro Summoning was the start of modern yugioh. As soon as the extra deck became a strong utility toolbox you could easily dip into. Fusions were never good (except when cheated out, which often got banned). They were super negative in card advantage and often difficult to (properly) summon, so it justified powerful fusion monsters. Nothing justified the power of Synchros, as Synchro summoning became so easy.

[@metalingus9296]

I feel like the zoo format was when the game really started feeling different. When links were introduced a few months later, it basically felt like a new game. The game has always evolved, but for me, this was it. If there’s a line in the sand for the game, I feel like it has to be MR4/links.

[@justinscaife530]

After zoo I will agree

[@yusheitslv100]

I agree. I wasn't following competitive at the time of Code of the Duelist, but I hated MR4. Can't summon from Extra Deck except to the Extra Monster Zone or a Zone pointed to by a Link monster. *Why?*

[@metalingus9296]

@@yusheitslv100 yeah. I had just really gotten back into the game pre zoo and was attending locals. The couple of formats before it were pretty weak in comparison to what was to come. Add that with red-eyes receiving support, terrible support but support, the summer/fall before zoo, and I was feeling good. I felt like I could deck build almost anything and troll some somewhat competitive decks with it. When zoo dropped, and to a lesser extent metalfoes, it was just too strong relative to what I could build. I took the format off to see where things would go, then they dropped MR4. I went from behind the most engaged I had been in the game since around 2011, to feeling like I was basically done. Since then, the game has gotten more oppressive with what it allows you to do, so those pre zoo formats mean that much more to me now knowing there’s really no going back.

[@zxien1]

Funnily enough Zoo's are basically a "link deck." If you think about it, you are just slowly using monster effects to incrementally make a new stronger monster/monster's just like you would with links. It almost feels like Konami made and XYZ "link deck" to test the waters of what links were supposed to be before release.

[@AzureQueenIvy]

I think it begun when Ash came out, a card good in every deck against every deck. Puts me in the mind of pot of greed.

[@mattyorshin]

It's to good

[@Harmonic14]

It's not comparable to Pot of Greed whatsoever lol

[@dracomeister7684]

A card you could use wisely or horribly and lose one card for free. Or a free plus for no reason, with no restrictions

[@floridaman6982]

Make call by the grave semi limited plz! They hit it just as cross-out designator came out I wonder why…. Now you have to buy ash blossoms AND crossout just to have the card work. Theres no space for the actual deck lol.

[@AzureQueenIvy]

@@Harmonic14 Not by card effect but i mean from deck building prospective. Whenever you start a deck ash is one of the first cards you put in, no matter what deck it is. of course Pot of greed is a bit more powerful but the concept is still the same, it’s literally in every single deck played.

[@Thisisjusttemporary]

As someone who has been here since the beginning playing this thing in middle school, modern Yugioh really started when synchros were introduced. That changed combos and playing styles forever

[@shakeweller]

Because it was the first summoning mechanic that didn't suck. Remember all the good fusion strategies before either cheated them out (Future Fusion) or contact fuse (glad beasts). Synchro was the first extra deck mechanic that was actually viable.

[@NeostormXLMAX]

xyzs were more of the ones who broke the game, synchro era was still slow and had a lot of fusion decks that can compete

[@Thisisjusttemporary]

@@NeostormXLMAX broke yes but like I said modern Yugioh *started* with synchros

[@ravdeepbagri1313]

Modern yugioh didn't really have a hard start date, more like we had sneak peaks of what it was in 2011 with x-sabers and six sam, a preview with windups, and then once dragon rulers came out that was essential the point of no return. I'd define modern yugioh as the gameplay style of board making and board breaking. The game moved from one for one interactions to combo and disruption. It was the chunkification of card effects where cards acted as both removal and recursion and you used such effects multiple times a turn.

[@malvo2099]

I always thought that "modern ygo" began with the increase in the consistency in the decks. If I think about older decks, they had strong combos in certain scenario, but all the decks were unconsisten. So imo when decks started to being able to perform their combo with consistency, that's the start of modern ygo for me

[@crossdaboss8914]

Idk there's some consistent otk and ftks in old yugioh

[@r4nd0mguy99]

One aspect that you didn't even really mention was the role of field spells. I think Dragon Ravine was the textbook example for how a field spell is usually responsible for how consistent a deck is. If you think about the older field spells, they just give a minor stat buff and that was it.

[@Cannon5]

I personally think modern Yu-Gi-Oh started getting more complicated when xyz was Introduced because it kinda added a whole new layer to how people played and I think the link era of Yu-Gi-Oh is when stuff started to become very similar to how the game is played today

[@zzZDarKCroWZzz]

I think tier 0 spyral format left a big influence in terms of "modern" yugioh, while not necessarily in terms of their cards/archetype being memorable but it was by this time where we started seeing a shift in modern deckbuilding specifically the abundance of main decked handtraps. While handtraps were always being played (dd crow, veilers, maxx c, gorz, trag, etc) they werent considered staples so to say, they were considered techs as real traps were the better option at this time, mostly played as side deck options i would say this shift was slowly being integrated with the ghost sisters as they had multiple implications and were more widely techable, i remember the invoked deck that played (10+ handtraps in the main deck) in zoo format which was funny at the time not knowing that would become the standard soon after. Players started replacing traps and running (10+ handtraps) in their maindecks as a necessity to counter the powerhouse that was spyral at their peak as their turn 1 boards were absurdly powerful as traps were too slow to stop their turn 1 plays.

[@stefanjames1365]

With the introduction of synchro summoning

[@starduelist2004]

In the synchro era, because at the end of it six Sam was crazy

[@marekjones9555]

I think the Dragon Rulers indicate the start of "Modern" because you can see the power influential cards afterwards are made in a similar spirit. They indicated a new direction that boss monsters/archetypes from then on would try to get "right" where the rulers were too much.

[@maxa7535]

Im inclined to say that "modern yugioh" started with xyz. Card design went from going from blowing all resources to bring out big boss, to spamming tinys for multiple monsters of strong power

[@jaggededge11]

It was the introduction of Links that really pushed the game into it's current state. Not only because of they plethora of ridiculous effects, but because it offered an endless outlet for all the free advantage one could generate as a result. - Synchros required tuners, non-tuners and getting to a specific level. Because of the need of both Tuners and Non-Tuners (Unless you were running Gottoms), you often had a finite line of play that was heavily board dependant. - XYZ's required creatures of similar levels, tokens couldn't be used, you normally couldn't chain XYZ into XYZ (At least until way later) and XYZ materials didn't instantly go into the graveyard (Which stopped a lot of effects from going off, and could often slow down loops as they wouldn't hit the graveyard right away. Links basically took Synchros/XYZ, and removed the limitations of their respective mechanics. As such, you can have lines of play that take several minutes to execute and either end in a hugely positive boardstate or a soft-lock (Or often times a combination of both). The only thing holding back lines of play are the actual creatures being used (Often in the form of hard "once per turn" effect)s and not the mechanics used to summon them.

[@Zagreus.]

So I was sitting here watching this video and had a thought. Why don’t they have more Icons on YuGiOh cards to categorize them like spells and traps do with field, equip, counter, etc. to get rid of some of the text on 90% of cards? For example: an icon for “Once per turn” so you can just look at the card and immediately see that instead of having to find it in a wall of effect text. Or how about a non-target icon that you can see “cannot be targeted by card effects, spells or traps” you could have a different icon for each type and it would be quickly identifiable and eliminate a lot of redundant text Thoughts?

[@paulfitzgerald762]

Loved hearing your perspective here and also going through some of the “modern” history of yugioh!

[@Shinheat]

I'd say around the Sychro era of Yugioh was when modern yugioh started. Combos began to become more consistent as well as have a more fleshed out goal for said combos. There was enough support out at that time for you to even say "Oh I won with ___ archetype". And it even evolved more so when we touched the XYZ era. I'd definitely love more discussions like this.

[@tyleetophbeifong8194]

once synchro came imo before synchro the only special summons were basically just cyber dragon and the like and extra deck needed fusion spells

[@stinkyboy101]

I wouldn’t consider the formats around this time period to necessarily feel like Modern YuGiOh, but I do remember playing during Return Dad format. It is one of the first format where the gameplay feels similar to what we have today.

[@comebackqing8452]

For me Tengu Plant format is the dividing line. After that the game became way more archetype based, faster, we had to start min/maxing deck building with only turn 1 in mind and main decking the maximum number of decent legal hand traps started to become mandatory. Wind-Ups and Inzektors feel like the first truly modern Yu-Gi-Oh decks to me. It just felt like a completely different game from that point forward. Mermail progressed it and then Dragon Ruler/Spellbook format was an absolute culture shock.

[@thatman666]

Anything around Neo Heisei era (2011-2020) is when Modern Yugioh began. Most specifically during Duelist Alliance.

[@Ghoste616]

Synchros. It was like opening Pandora's Box. A flood of other summoning mechanics would soon follow and power-creep the shit out of the game. But I'm just a casual old-school fan, so feel free to disregard my opinion haha. Also, good video Paul. This was a cool trip down memory lane of how Yugioh came to be what it is today.

[@6Paths]

Synchro was the start of it, with xyz comig the fate was sealed.

[@jeremyranger4260]

I think when cyber dragon came out is when yu-gi-oh changed direction to eventually become what it is today. Generic special summoning is what got yu-gi-oh to be so fast, Floodgates and hand traps are just an attempt at slowing it down.

[@Ghoste616]

Yeah, the idea of being able to summon a lvl 5+ basically for free was crazy at the time. Tributes actually mattered back then.

[@ducky36F]

As an oldie, I’d almost argue for when Dark Armed Dragon decks became popular

[@adolcorsei7390]

When Number 16: Shock Master started seeing play is my answer for this. Cimo made some good points that it's where it was one of the first cards that actually prevented you from playing with one of mechanics, monsters, traps, or spells. While there was always cards that did that, they could only do one of them, Shock Master alone was able to do any of the 3.

[@GodKiller97]

For me, "modern" YGO has two meanings. The first is when the game, for the first time since its inception, began being played differently. I don't mean in terms of summoning mechanics and power levels, I mean in terms of what game states players found themselves in where knowing when to trade was good, when multi-turn resource management would make and break games, when would be good to hold cards or summon monsters over several turns to account for different interactions, when you would "option-select" interactions. The fact is that classic YGO (I define "old school" differently, and will define below) was always trying to accomplish then what we are accomplishing now with getting as much value out of cards as possible, the game was just far less effective at doing so and strategy had to supplement the limitations of older cards. Now, there are rarely times when players don't dump their hand to get their combo going to set up the most powerful board possible, you're no longer thinking of which monsters to normal summon/ set (setting monsters was HUGE up until Xyz summoning, and even then a good amount of decks regularly set monsters) this turn and next turn, you're no longer making decisions on how best to trade because so often now the swings in YGO are so large then when you build your board over your opponent's, it's usually such a washed situation that you sequencing doesn't matter. These are all obviously over-simplifications and all these things still happen (the things that are better now, similarly, were also occurring back then), but they've taken a backseat to concepts such as combo structure, SEGOC, playing around handtraps, etc. It's not a matter of which is better or which is more difficult, it's more about what is good now versus what was good then, and how the game is played differently. Back then the game philosophy was a balance of speed, power, and consistency. If something was fast and consistent, it wasn't powerful. If something was fast and powerful, it either had some kind of condition or required some amount of unrecurrable resources. If something was consistent and powerful, it was slow. These days, that balancing philosophy doesn't exist. Cards are being conceptualized as all three before going to print. The second way we could talk about modern YGO is talking about the most recent iteration of game state. Not format specific, just what metas tend to be good, what players are looking for overall until the next trends arrive, etc. The things that were good in MR4 are not the same things that are as good in MR5 in a meta sense, not necessarily in regards to what concepts are good between modern vs old school. So to me, the first type of modern YGO began when the way YGO used to be played was no longer in the majority of what we were seeing in the meta, and for me that time came after HAT format where decks consistently started being played in the way described above. I believe every format prior to this was "classic" YGO. Not old school, that would be pre-synchro era, but classic in terms of how the game played and felt. The second usage of modern as I've described I'd say began with MR5, as that was the most recent and extreme shift in what cards were good as opposed to what strategies were good.

[@1superstick]

I remember playing through the duelist challenges in Legacy of the Duelist. Shadoll and Burning Abyss stood out in terms of difficulty to overcome. Though at times it felt that BA was unfair, it really helped me understand where my own decks were lacking and I am grateful for at least that.

[@OutlawOtaku]

Paul, you're getting real existential with some of these videos, and I like it!

[@jimmyjohnson1175]

Just hearing the words “wind up” gives me PTSD that’s when I had to quit knowing I no longer stood a chance at a regional tournament watching those wind up, rescue rabbit Dino decks. I didn’t play for ten years after that regional but tried to pay attention to the game. Playing master duel I’m astonished how fast the game has become and I thought it was crazy in 2012.

[@alexandrehoffmann9460]

To me the main transition from old school to less old school to modern is how the extra deck is used. Old school was when extra deck was generally neglected or a bonus. Less old school is when boss monsters where moved to the extra deck. The deck gradually became a tool for extra deck access. (It can be seen as a refined version of what was intended with LV monsters) Modern era, to me, is a state of the game where your extra deck is basically a secondary hand thanks to link monsters. A monster is summoned, his effect is activated and it is tributes right after.

[@007josebond]

Dragon ruler/spell book format is the start of modern yugioh. Those 2 deck absolutely over powercrept everything we had prior. The dragon rulers card just did too much and they would float. Soellbook of judgment was too op back then. PePe was when modern yugioh became more 1 card combos to making big fields. Then Konami just made cards after them pretty much the same to what we have now with 1 card combos to too many generic Omni negate boss monsters.

[@RunicSigils]

In general the primary demarcation has to be Synchro (though the Cyber Dragon stuff itself also didn't help, since it's what most archetypes came to be like, it wasn't anywhere near the spam of material). Everything since has simply been a faster version of Synchro. Fusions you could only originally use from hand or field or, at their most powerful, had to wait a couple turns for from deck so they didn't NEED the ability to special summon everything in your hand and a third of your deck turn one. This kept the power level low. Particularly since you usually still had to draw specific materials to even start doing it rather than having a searcher for a searcher for a searcher. But once you have a thing that needs two or more monsters on the field you're going to need something to be able to special summon itself to make use of that. And then the archetypes who care less about the ED need to be able to do that so thing to keep up which led to things like tributing backrow or banishing from wherever. Of course, the real point is that you didn't NEED to be making ED monsters turn one and certainly not boss ones. Being able to drop boss monsters turn one just makes little sense and clearly wasn't the intent of the game originally. All of the anime pretty clearly show what they intend the game to be but when they print cards they refuse to put proper restrictions on them to make it so. Plot keeps the anime balanced which obviously doesn't exist in the physical game.

[@Amphidsf]

I'd say the start was with hand traps, the inclusion in decks as staples evolved over time the rest of the cards in the deck to individually have to do more to keep up. For example with starting hand having two hand traps meant that the other three cards needed to go further to make up for the "smaller" starting hand.

[@TheInfiniteDraw]

Modern Yu-Gi-Oh began with the introduction of Link monsters, and more specifically the introduction of the new Master Rules which allowed the summoning of all extra deck monsters again, without needing a Link monster first. Link's and especially Link 1's facilitate so many combos that just wouldn't be possible without them. Being able to trigger monster effects by linking away a card instantly made the game a lot crazier because it sort of devalued the normal summon, or rather changed its value as almost always being a way to facilitate a special summon.

[@OG-512]

After XYZ I noticed how the game started to change, but after 1-2 years I took a massive break until ’20 then a 5 Month break again to ’21. It was so different & much faster..

[@yuseifido5706]

The biggest difference between modern and old shool yugioh is monsters being able to interact on the opponent's turn. Before, that part of the game was reserved to only spell/trap cards.

[@JohnDoe-km9vx]

For me it was when the hand-traps starting taking over your main deck, Ash Blossom's release is for me the start of it. We are so reliant on this card even now.

[@JohnDoe-km9vx]

ok and i got to the point in the video where u say it :))

[@miyu8823]

Cydra is the point were we discovered fire, everything before it was the yugioh kazuki planned.

[@treasuredcollectibles]

Really enjoyable video from start to finish. One note to mention is Burning Abyss I feel could use more emphasis as they were the first introduction of OMNI FLOATERS.For example, they could be excevated and of course even discarded from hand by own card effects or opponents and still trigger effect, in addition to "sent or destroyed" from field to grave. To add insult to injury, they wrote Burning Abyss effects to not miss timing, unlike the Yang Zings which debuted alongside them in Duelist Alliance. This was the first time we saw an exclusive Archetype from TCG that went to a strong top of 1st Tier (unlike the unplayable F Tier Noble Knights before them), outclassing & blindsiding shaddolls which had just got done dominating the OCG. The part about Nekroz being a monster that is never "dead in hand" evolving after burning abyss example could actually of been implicated as originating with Burning Abyss instead of Nekroz. Again, loved the video.

[@CommanderWar64]

"Modern yugioh" card design has always existed, but it has slowly been drip-fed to us over the last 20 years. That faucet has since broken, along with any semblance of game balance or intregrity which leads us to the awful/beautiful game we all know today. If you go back to 2009, Swap Frog was a Level 2 monster with 3 (even 4 technically) effects: it could summon itself (1), send an aqua from deck (2), bounce a monster you control (3), let you summon an additional Frog (4). Inzektors and Wind-Ups showed off how strong combo decks could be. Then I'd say the Dragon Rulers were some of the first monsters that were both engine, beaters, and searchers with utility effects built in (each had 3 effects). By 2014 we had really cemented the word "engine" into Yugioh vernacular (though maybe Gravekeeper engine or Destiny Hero engine were ran before) with simple lines like Tenki->Bear and Myrmelo->Hole or Sanctum->Artifact, etc...

[@rowdyruu8275]

i believe the start of modern yugioh was the synchro era. from the ftk burn decks, to plant/junk synchro, to frog ftk; it started out as kill your opponent as fast as you can or lose. as the game progressed it became more of a break my board; while it wasnt so bad during the xyz era thats certainly where it started imo (Bujin) (dino rabbit). after that it became what it is now; ultimately why i left the game post NECH.

[@avatar2xl]

When fishborg blaster was printed was the first time I saw a modern style yugioh combo deck

[@ag4640]

To me, it started with the Danger Thunder Guardragon era. You know, those unbreakable boards full of negates that forced other players to run 10-15 handtraps.

[@bleack8701]

I think Ash Blossom is just good at showing what's wrong. It's the type of card that would be banned in old yugioh, but now it's necessary so you can counterplay and try to interrupt your opponent to give yourself a chance to play on your turn

[@Noojtxeeg]

This was a wonderful explanation of the gradual power creep. Discussing the themes more so than the decks themselves. Because these themes are what "modern" design builds upon.

[@Ghoste616]

Well said.

[@kaiserdragon7233]

Well that's depends which part of modern yugioh we'll talking about. Cydra started the special summoning. CED was the first "boss" monster that you really don't have an out too. The dragon rulers started the long combos but also controlled decks. Also during that time. In the rouge and junk levels, we started to see hand traps slowly replacing traps.

[@macdre9552]

As long as we still refer to terms as ‘stratos, infernity barrier, rota, etc’ I will believe that is when modern yugioh started

[@Dramatic_Gaming]

The biggest thing that defines modern yugioh, and arguably the thing most of these things stem from, is the shift of the Main Deck from being the main source of your power to being a resource pool to fuel your Extra Deck. The vast majority of modern meta decks don't care about their Main Deck monsters; most of them are glorified spells or traps now that just happen to leave behind a body that can be used for extra deck plays. You could arguably print an archetype that is nothing but spells and traps that have an added effect of "put a token with X/Y/Z stats on the field" *(HI ADVENTURE ENGINE)* and not notice any difference in play.

[@cherrycreamsoda4253]

It started in the pendulum era. The field changed. pendulums became relevant. Decks became heavily more and more “archetype” focused.

[@Gatitasecsii]

I remember when black wing was the only thing being played aand that was during the synchro era.

[@balistikscaarz1959]

To me it feels like DUEA was the start because it flushed a lot of people out and changed how easy advantage was accrued. You had "plus 1" fire fist being a thing only for shaddoll fusion to come in and say "That's adorable, watch me go plus 3 off one card". The arc V era was loaded with decks that changed the game and gave us our stream of monsters that float or recur, or could recur themselves. Shaddoll fusions, tellar xyzs, infernoids, ba, qli. And then towers, we compare so many cards to towers and shaddoll fusion, and even the whole "pay 8 feel great" any time a deck pays 800 because of qli. Now every meta archetype has some form of protection, revival, or floats in some way. And I loved that era...even if I only played it on dueling network, but Nekroz was the first meta deck I ever picked up in real life. I just loved the art, playstyle, and fact I didn't need an expensive extra deck.

[@3clipser]

For me modern Yu-Gi-Oh began with pendulum as it was the first mechanic introduced that I actually had to put some effort in learning. I always found every other summoning mechanic to be somewhat straight forward

[@SeraSmiles]

I personally played through most of yugioh's history bar quitting in early MR4 so I'm def biased but I feel like there's 3 main 'periods' of Yugioh: DM-5Ds ish was like early yugioh. Games were slower, power creep was super all over the place, & decks rarely had a consistent game plan. Archetypes were kinda the beginning of the end for this era, a theme that could plug into a deck & make a consistent strategy really changed the concept of how you played. Mid Yugioh was like late 5Ds-late Arc V, it was when Yugioh really became a different game than what it was early on. Decks became more & more consistent, power creep was much more regular (with exceptions obv), & the extra deck was important in a way that it really had never been before. Late/Modern Yugioh, to me, is when Zoodiac was released to now. It was the moment where cheating summoning mechanics became normal instead of extremely rare, combos became exponentially more powerful than anything that happened before, & the extra deck monsters that came out of MR4 turned into both your main extenders & your bosses.

[@romann921]

I think around the time Hero Strike was released, 2015ish. From this point forward there was more CRAZY stuff being released. Monster that could do more, and in the graveyard. Unbreakable boards were becoming more of a thing, and otk decks started becoming a thing too.

[@josephcourtright8071]

What really kicked off modern yugioh was not adding X summoning mechanic. Instead it started when creature started getting their enter the battlefield triggers immediately. In the past if your searchers were things like Sangan or Giant Rat which you played then used when they got destroyed. If you wanted removal you set Ryko and had to wait for the flip, etc. The only card that really acted immediately were the monarchs, but they were balanced by needing to tribute. In a modern deck you play a monster and search immediately off its effect. Or immediately get the ability to special summon again, etc. Modern yugioh started when important abilities of summoning and searching started happening on the entry of monsters, instead of some kind of delay.

[@jinzo1171]

i feel like the 1st 5ds set was when i noticed a shift into lightspeed, although lightsword and dad decks were heavy and hard to touch without the right tools

[@mrbubbles6468]

2010. Duelist Revolution. Effect Veiler set the bar for handyraps which turned the design and how we play the game on it’s head and why we have what we have now

[@sofaking1611]

The introduction of Link monsters and the prevalence of hand traps

[@luminous3558]

I'd honestly say its around Raging Tempest and Maximum crisis where we truly shifted into the modern meta where card advantage completely gave way to tempo and hyper consistency. Duelist alliance might have shifted the archetype quality a lot but a lot of the match ups were still back and forth grind games.

[@mark1A100]

I can't say exactly when this happened but I feel like it became modern Yu-Gi-Oh when every archetype became based around foux costs. As in effects had costs on them but if you were playing cards from the same archetype that cost was actually the condition of another card. The example that comes to my mind is dinos. The level 4 and up dinos want to destroy monster(usually other dinos) to trigger their effect. The lower level ones want to be destroyed to activate their effect and scrap raptor sits right in the middle. Basically everything in the deck that isn't a hand trap may as well have a plus 1-2 attached to it as long as you had another card from the archetype in hand

[@AvianAnimator]

Modern Yugioh began around the introduction of Ash Blossom IMO.

[@4sur20]

Modern Yu-Gi-Oh started with cyber dragon 😂

[@oooblyjooblies7022]

Ash Blossom is kind of like the 'Swords to Plowshares'/'Force of Will' (MTG cards) of hand-traps - it's far too versatile too efficiently, out-powering anything else with a similar effect. Even Ghost Ogre - the FIRST Yokai Girl - doesn't feel QUITE so oppressive.

[@TheShinblast]

Modern Yu-Gi-Oh for me probably started around the 2012 era, when something like wind-up and dino-rabbit started to swarm the scene. Some decks have gimmicks, but generally their boss monsters are easily summoned with 1 card combo and have this super effect either it's to negate everything or basically "towers." Yeah you can argue plant synchro that can summon quasar turn 1 exist, but they still need some sort of setup and half their deck was gone just to summon 1. Tele-DAD was an anomaly and too strong for their time, but it's still needs couple turns and setups for their deck to work. I feel like having something such as laggia-dolkka in the field, or 3 zenmaity while your opponent have nothing, was something that changed Yu-Gi-Oh forever. It became something else entirely that's not fun to play anymore, at least for me. All of that hammered by dragons rulers release in the mid 2013, my goodness, I remember it's so stressful to play the game and in the end I decided to retire from the physical TCG. I returned to this game only because of the release of master duel, and discover many channels such as APS and MBT, well here I am now, I guess.

[@SirChristopher_]

Duelist Alliance best era. Yang zing, BA, shaddoll, tellarknight, etc. So much fun 😩

[@EleggGaming]

According to Patrick Hoban, it started with the Dragon Rulers and I believe that but to me it doesn’t come in full swing until the Arc-V era.

[@yusheitslv100]

Full swing lol. (Swing into action? Carve the arc of victory?)

[@EleggGaming]

@@yusheitslv100 :(

[@yusheitslv100]

@@EleggGaming pointing out an unintentional pun.

[@shawnhawes7545]

Love longer vids like this

[@aapowarjovaara1865]

Many have already said it, but I think that synchro era was something of a "pre-modern era" of you Yu-Gi-Oh, when we'd get cards like Glow-Up, Effect Veiler, Gale The Whirlwind, Dandylion and Goyo Guardian, that showcased what the modern era turned out to be in the Xyz era. But also we got cards like Stardust, Black Rose and (God knows) Ancient Fairy Dragon that didn't become instantly obsolete. (Though we found out how good AFD was only in the link era)

[@NotTheWheel]

Yugioh maintained a equalibrium of game state from DM-GX era pretty well. Synchros lines started to blur but by XYZ's things spiraled out of control. To be honest we've never quite left the XYZ era, where GX and Synchros had their time to breath Pendulums were out paced by XYZ decks. Link summoning really didn't change that either.

[@zhang1750]

Equalibrium hand control dominating 90%

[@maddog6521]

I think that 5 Ds is where the idea or maybe the basis of the modern Yu-Gi-Oh came about. In terms of special summoning boss monsters became less expensive or hard to summon considering tuning was just two monsters. Instead of there being specific fusion material and or ritual spells and monsters of specific levels, it was just two monsters that somewhat mirrors the link summoning of today.

[@chrismiller3548]

Cheating summoning mechanics goes all the way back to the early 2000s with Metamorphosis being able to cheat out fusion monsters

[@dantevega5103]

Duelist alliance was the set that changed yugioh for what it is today, literally every archetype was a toer 1 strategy and 1 card leads you to 3 cards and 2 cards gives you full combo, summoning mutiple bodies and even if they die, every card and their mother floated into something,

[@bl00by_]

The release of the Rulers in Lord of the Tachyon Galaxy was the "Soft" starting point, it was the 1st deck which just made pluses, there was almost no time were the deck went minus which was huge. In fact it was that huge that* Spellbook of Judgement had to be a thing. It also was one of the first decks which used the gy as a 2nd hand/deck, so yeah it was the deck which set a new direction for card design, (That's why I call it the "Soft" starting point). The actual starting point was Duelist Alliance and MR3, this set literally changed the entire game moving forward. The impact of Duelist Alliance and MR3 was insane and many cards/archetypes from that set still see play today, this shows how crazy this set really is. Besides that MR3 brought combo decks to a new level, Pendulums were crazy and PEPE really showed how much you can spam with the power of pre MR4 Pend summons.

[@apoptosisduellinks109]

MR3 = master rule 3? What does it mean? Same for 'MR4'. What is 'PEPE'?

[@bl00by_]

@@apoptosisduellinks109 MR3 was the MR which introduced pendulums and also changed some other game mechanics/rulings the biggest one would be that both players can control a field spell at the same time. MR4 was the MR which introduced Link monsters, the EMZ's and extra linking. It also had some rule changes, like the fact that you had to summon fusion, synchros and xyz into the EMZ or a zone a link monster points to. And the pend zones moved to the outer sp/tr zones (before that they were seprate zones) PEPE is a short term which stands for "Performapal Performages" it was a Tier 0 deck which got killed 1 week after it's release.

[@apoptosisduellinks109]

@@bl00by_ thanks for the elaboration

[@MattSinz]

Duelist Alliance is where "modern" yugioh began.

[@brianlowe935]

To me it seems it started with handtraps and speed plus the invention of power creep to boost the sales of new product

[@lucadivine3862]

I generally considered DM/GX to be definitely classic YGO, with 5Ds being this weird in-between "pre-modern" time. Zexal is sort of "early modern" where many staple features came to be, but not quite in the form with know and love(/loathe) them now. Arc-V and onwards is what I'd fairly definitely call modern YGO with Vrains representing power creep, but not really fundamentally changing the paradigm of YGO (beyond F'ing with the extra deck for a while during MR4).

[@legozackproduct111]

For me, gladiators assault when we started seeing lightsworns, gladiators and chaos decks started becoming coherent decks that revolved around setting up a big boss monster with a decent atk and some gimmicky effect.

[@Apocralyph]

I would out the breaking point at the release of El Shaddoll Fusion and Virgil in The New Challengers. It marks the beginning of the era where almost every top deck can OTK with little effort. Now missing a beat would very frequently just lose you the game immediately. Obviously OTK decks existed before, but there were always plenty of slower decks as well. But now even the more defensive decks like Qli could just drop a Disk on you out of nowhere and end the game. One of the fundamental elements of a TCG breaks down at this point where every deck has inevitability, making games end more quickly and decks feel more similar.

[@daeviddmeynardde1925]

As someone that played OG "chess match" yugioh I think the beginning of the modern era would be when E-heroes came out. To my understanding they were the first archetype that it didn't matter where the card was ((field, deck, hand, graveyard, or exiled (banished )) it was still able to be used to make plays.

[@Gaming_Groove]

In terms of Advanced format, I think it was around the time we started getting actual, functional archetypes and powerful, synergistic card design. Phantom Darkness was probably the start of this, with Dark Grepher/Armageddon Knight, Allure of Darkness, and DAD. Honorable mention to GX era Hero and Cyber Dragon stuff. Basically, decks that encouraged use of pre-designed strategies for huge tempo swings that were hard to come back from. After that, it just became an arms race of boss monsters. Before then, a competitive deck was one that exerted pressure to maintain advantage for an eventual win, with the occasional OTK running around. You'd see a lot of Monarch strategies, sure, but they were using Treeborn Frog or Macro Cosmos, not the actual cards designed for their theme. You'd see Warrior decks, but they were running a mish-mash of Warriors from different themes like Don Zaloog, D.D. Warrior Lady, and Mystic Swordsman Lv 2, with then-staples like Breaker and anti-meta cards like Kycoo. Old school YuGiOh was more about cobbling together decks from mostly unrelated cards that had synergistic effects, and filling the gaps with staples that were at least neutral in advantage (one for one removal and such) and some teched in spice to catch your opponent off guard. Modern YuGiOh began when the Archetype Deck became the best path to victory.

[@Gatitasecsii]

Synchro summoning. I would be fine with Synchros if there weren't material monsters with effects that special summon tuners or vice versa from the deck.

[@DavidEllner]

I’d probably say around ash came out. I felt like hand traps weren’t so big before and weren’t so damaging. Since once they came to be more common decks kept getting way stronger to have even more generic combos versus more specific focuses of decks

[@megahades8296]

hand traps, easily the biggest jump yugioh has ever had from a single type of card.

[@Mischief_T]

For me it is two time periods. Before xyz, synchro, Link summoning: And after

[@Mischief_T]

That being said I love both and still love Yugioh ☺️❤️

[@eshasunrise]

I'mma jump in before the video properly starts to throw in my two cents: Duel Terminal. These arcade machines, and the meta stories attached, really focused on archetype-centric decks and Synchro Monsters, which expanded the fusion Deck into the Extra Deck, leading to the three-pile gameplay we tend to expect. Coupled with new effect-heavy Synchro and XYZ cards handed out by the machines, like Cataster or Brilliant Fusion, and you get some of the most iconic decks of the Synchro and XYZ eras. Also, the Duel Terminal really hammered home the "Gimmick Monster" releases that come with each new format and master rule change. The post-GX to early Zexal period was defined by these monsters in competitive, and they really made the game faster and more effect oriented. And while we had some hard-hitting archetypes from the GX era, and a few classic monsters with some supports, like Archfiends and Dark Magicians, none of them would hit their stride until Synchro monsters took off, and Ritual/Fusion monsters loosened their restrictive mechanics. The change was definitely gradual, and is still ongoing, but this "early middle period" of Yugioh really feels like the start of what people would consider modern.

[@bradleytaylor9712]

I remember when i wq sbig into yigioh ect and i went up against the first pendulum (and one of the last) decks ive seen and it was yosenju. After like turn 2 i laughed said gg then played vs my friends six sams cause that was fun :)