I’m only half a minute in but I’m willing to bet it’s because when you lose in yugioh you often lose because you don’t get to actually “play your deck”. The nature of other games being slower means you usually get a few turns in at minimum before losing but it yugioh you can literally just get locked out from even playing the game either by being just overpowered by your opponent, getting sacked, getting floodgated, staring down a 6 negate board with 6 cards in your hand etc.

When many of us started Yugioh back when it started, we all thought it would be cool to be able to pull off fancy combos and flex like Yugi against an opponent with "better" cards and still pull off a victory. Today, so many players spend big money on cards, sit through combos that take forever, and taste the bitter cup of defeat while having to endure the mind game that also happens. It does get frustrating. And then you look at it and realize we have become Seto Kaiba.

Yugioh is so heavily reliant on your opening 5 cards. The boards and combos and outs are so powerful, drawing the counter card often comes down to the luck of the opening hand. So yes it feels bad because a high percent of games someone feel screwed by lady luck.

I've already a thought a lot about this and what I realized was something the other games mitigate better is that Yu-Gi-Oh is very control based. So wether you notice it or not you lose because the other player controlled you in some way or another by making you unable to even play. Think about games you lost that you legit had fun despite. The ones where the game actually went to turn 6, turn 7, turn 8. Where you are able to respond to your opponent and they respond to you and you are still able to respond back.

As far as I’ve experienced, a big issue is that Yugioh’s a game where the purpose is stopping your opponent from playing. And if you spend time to build a deck and play a game you love, not being able to play really hurts. When you lose in other card games, it still feels like a battle, like you were able to play, but in yugioh it just feels like a waste of time and money. Ya summed it up really well when you said that only one player gets to have fun in yugioh

I think many would agree that its HOW you lose on yugioh thats the most rage inducing. We talkin bout a game where you can lose before your first card even resolves. The game is flawed at its core for having an infinite amount of moves per turn and playing cards straight from the deck being the norm.

For me it's definitely how uninteractive the game feels when you're playing against anything meta. The game is never gonna feel fun when the meta is to not let your opponent do anything. I'm so sick of seeing Baronne and Borreload Savage every damn game, and these omni negates with little to no cost need to get gone. I agree with what you said in another video where an omni negate needs to have a big cost like tributing itself or just have absolutely garbage stats, because as it is right now your opponent ends on a board of 3 or 4 negates, all above 2k attack, and it feels like there's no point in even attempting to play into it most of the time

In Magic there's decks called combo decks which basically mean when your opponent gets their "combo" they win the game. These are the least fun decks to play against because a lot of times you can lose on turn 1 or 2 without ever getting to play. Yugioh seems like it's evolved into the ENTIRE meta being the equivalent of magic combo decks.

I feel like for yugioh when you lose its easy to feel that your opponents deck was unfair since basically every deck now has atleast a few "unfair" things in it. Even low teir decks like post kirin ban majespecter has majespecter tempest which is basically a no life point cost solemn strike and majespecter supercell which is "you can't negate my cards" those cards can easily feel unfair but at the same time no one is calling majespecter op without kirin

The game only is sacky because there's no grind game. If you go second, you can pretty much look at your opening hand and immediately tell whether or not you'll win. From the OCG's set spoilers, it seems like all Konami is doing to address this is adding cards that just let you shut down the Extra Deck more, with Kshatri-La just letting you rip your opponent's most important card out of it for free and Byssted negating the entire ED and if your opponent outs it, it still ends up shutting off the ED for an entire turn. So, I don't think the OCG is looking to make the game less sacky.

The other day I was playing at my local card shop, there was two lots of two people and one set playing yu gi oh and one set playing Pokémon. The Pokémon set was calm and just genuinely like “well played dude” where as the yu gi oh set broke out in to a heated discussion if you will due to card interactions between ghost ogre and transcode talker, one guy was saying his transcode could special summon to the zone it pointed to with the other guy arguing that it can’t since it wasn’t on the field or something. It was like a real life side by side comparison meme 😅😂

My college had a Yugioh club for a couple weeks. It was almost entirely the early 2000s playstyles and I didn’t realize it when I joined. It died because I used a galaxy-eyes deck and 2-turned the whole club. I thought everything was cool, but then nobody showed up the next week. I tried not to disrespect anyone, but it just ceased to exist and no one would talk about it. Not saying anyone was super salty about losing, but I probably killed some of the motivation for people to come back.

In Master Duel, nine losses out of ten that I suffer are due to a staple. What feels bitter is that I very seldom lose to their "deck", but I lose to a well-timed Ash, Imperm, Droplet or something like that. It's because they drew into it and I didn't that time. I play Robina, they Ash, I don't have Called By The Grave. They play something, I didn't draw into Ash or anything. It's pure luck most of the time.

Honestly, Yu-Gi-Oh's problem is the lack of interaction. When you get to a point when your opponent plays solitaire for like 5 min and set up a board with like 10 negates and you can do nothing about it. Or the oponent is a troll and just ftks you.

I remember when I left YuGiOh for Magic it was such a shock to me to see the stark difference between the games. For one, resource management in Magic stems from mana, not extenders and searches. Sire you can tutor in Magic, and you can play spells that draw you tons of cards, but you won't always have the mana to continuously deploy and build your board. Meanwhile it seems like every card in an archetype in YuGiOh tutors out another piece of that archetype and/or special summoning one. As for negates, not every Magic deck is running counterspells, and even the ones who are, are sacrificing a bit of tempo on their turn by holding up some of their mana, not casting a creature to block with or other spells, to hopefully stop an opponent from doing something. Meanwhile in YuGiOh, your "counterspells" are your creatures, and they have massive stat lines sometimes, which just makes them oppressive. Counterspells never feel good to get hit by, but when that counterspell also hits you for a third or more of your life total, it feels even worse. And of course don't forget hand traps, which are essentially just copies of Force of Will/Force of Negation with anime girls on them. It almost seems YuGiOh has become a game where all archetypes are aggro-combo-control, rather than having aggro, combo, and control as separate and distinct archetypes. The speed of the game is blistering, the lack of a summon limit, aside from your one normal (whoopdy doo), just leads to insane board states on turn one, and the fact that Spell cards dont have any limitations on them aside from any kind of once per turn clauses that some might have, be it soft or hard, makes resource management even more of a non-issue.

I think you nailed it. Games in Yugioh could be very one-sided if you don't draw specific outs like Droplet... No game should be one sided like that. Games (not only card games, games in general) should be interactive, feeling like you actually had an opportunity to win.

The money in competetive deck building in yugioh compared to other card games is a big part Droplet, prosperity, accesscode, Ash, Barone all break the bank when ya put it all together. So to spend all that money to lose, especially if its on the regular gets frustrating. Next is right on with your poiint of the balance of the game. We have cheese of cards that are unaffected by effects, floodgates, lucky top draw of a limited to 1, or cards that have soft limits of negate effects. All of which can make for a duel where you cant play your deck on your first turn or shifting on turn 2-3 what would be a solid win into an auto loss. It's rare that I have a game that I feel is a "Good" game back and fourth; either someone goes first builds a board and you cant break ti or goes second and has outs and breaks for everything. I 100% agree with what you say feels like only 1 person really has fun. Like I love when my deck goes full combo and its an easy win but that to me often isnt as enjoyable as a solid back and fourth where i might lose to being out played or pull out a unique combo to get out of a situation. It's one thing to be out played and other to be outspent and/or brick. One thing you didn't mention also has to do with the player base ages. We're seeing a lot of 20 and 30 somethings playing compared to back in the day where it was a lot of teenagers, basically most of us that grew up either yugiboomers ro kids who liked the anime that stuck with to got back into the game. As adults we might have more money to put into our hobbies (which is great bc Barone is twice the top prices of what BLS and CED were back in the day) BUT we also typically have less time to dedicate to our hobbies since we have jobs and families. So instead of locals just being a couple hours of free time on a weeknight/weekend Locals is one of your few times getting out for fun in the week and regionals instead of being 1-2 day trip on spring break or in the summer that's your vacation for the season or year.

Just lost in locals today to 3 bird decks. Definitely feels like robbery when they lock you with wind barrier statue 😂

To me, I believe the problem with Yu-Gi-Oh is that on any turn you can just summon as many times as basically you want. So many things summon from the deck, hand, and graveyard. It's no fun to sit there and watch your opponent go through half their deck in one turn...also price of cards are out of control. It turns off the casual player/new player to the game. Just my two cents 🤷‍♂️

If Yugioh were a game that promoted interaction between player opposed to a ton generic extra deck cards that say "negate" on them every time, or floodgates that lock you out of playing, people would feel better about it.

The game is centered around negating our opponent, which automatically is a "feels bad" setup.

One thing that contributes to feeling bad when losing as a new or returning player is the ability to get cheated by your opponent due to how complex the game is. If they say their card works a certain way you kinda have to just go with it or call in a judge every few minutes since cards are increasingly complicated and come on and off the board so quickly. A game like Magic doesn't really have this issue (except in Eternal formats) because the resource system (mana) prevents you from just doing a billion things a turn. The lack of a resource system in Yu-Gi-Oh really makes the rules off the wall even if you're trying to play casually.

For me it pisses me off how you build a 40 card deck, go first, and have a meh or brick hand and you just surrender turn one because you know a huge majority of the time you'll get OTK'ed turn 2 so those other 35 cards feel pointless to have

I think its the problem is that in YGO, you have clearly lost SOOO much earlier than tour opponent can actually kill you. You can lose by them just putting up 20+ negates, but negates don't end the game, so your opponent has to spend another length of time after they win to actually kill you, so you just sit there stewing in loss. Even with surrendering, the time thing happens on a macro scale. Turns with each players take so long and you run out of interaction early on so you aren't actually playing for a while before you get to a loss point, so you just have to wait and see knowing you ran out of options to actually PLAY the game, removing agency. In a game like Bakugan, you always have SOMETHING you CAN play. If those cards can or can't help is up to you and your skill, but you always have SOMETHING

As Yu-Gi-Oh progresses, victory happens with the deck building phase more and more.

To make the game more friendly and less painful we just have to not dedicate to prevent the other player from playing and let the game part to happen more and both players can show what they can really do and see results for all the effort building creative decks and strategies. The negation mechanic in particular hurts yugioh a lot as a game to have a good time, either because of how annoying it is trying to play and having someone tells you "no" and it's a valid thing and also because the game itself most of the time doesn't give you what you need to deal with that.

i’ve felt as if the meta has been draining my will to play the game, i’m a simple person, i see a deck i like, i learn how to play, and then i play. but what’s preventing me from playing said deck is the people playing meta, and pretty much indirectly saying that you have no place here with the deck you’re playing. i’ve felt suffocated by this, and have even had moral depressive episodes over such a thing. Kazuki Takahashi created yugioh with the intention of building friendships, but with the way the game has treated people like myself, it feels as if the opposite has happened…

As personal experience, I play Cardfight Vanguard, and every time I see someone lose (when its more of a serious game(tournaments for example)) its like they are upset at themselves for knowing they could have played better or take different decisions, when they feel upset to the opponent is when they play a deck that they know didnt have a chance against. In general (again, for me) I feel like losing in Vanguard is more of a self learning experience and thats probably why its not as toxic.... Also.. The game's cheap... waaay cheaper than yugioh, I just bought a Lyrical competitive deck for about 50 Dollars.

I totally agree. One of my favorite memories is staying at a friend's house for few Weekes and we re-discovered yugioh through a couple structure decks. We would play any chance we got weather it was 2 am or after dinner cross-legged on the carpet, and we'd be so invested and freak out when someone lost that the parent would tell us to be quite or they'll take the cards. Adults telling 17 year Olds to quiet down over a card game.

I think that boss monsters in general should be for their archetype so you know what they are boss monsters for. The only generic boss monsters should be divine beast to make them special and give them a reason to be generic. That's what makes them God's lol

I've always wondered why I feel like more garbage than normal when I lose at stuff compared to losing at yugioh. I say it's the price for me personally, but it's also just this fear of not being able to win before my cards get power crept cause of the prices, it takes me a long time to build decks. And not to mention just bad duels turn me off to the idea of dueling at locals for so long.

As a returnee i can confirm that i feel bitter whenever i lose especially to stun and floodgate user, i can deal with combo deck easily cuz i usual use that opportunity to learn the deck better but it still sucks ofc especially if i didn't draw the out. Idk what could possibly balance Yu-Gi-Oh at this point without changing the game fundamentally so I'll just enjoy what i can

It also feels for me (a master duel player that’s never touched physical cards off of the playground) that when I lose it’s because I could never have won, and I might as well not have been there. Admittedly I’m not much of a meta chaser, and I know that if I just wanted to win I should be doing things very differently starting with my deckbuilding, but it still feels pretty bad. And I don’t just want to win, I want to have fun, and I have fun playing when I play a deck I like and get into interesting situations with it. A lot of the times when I lose, it isn’t interesting, and that’s the problem. For master duel specifically, I also think there not (appearing) to be a person on the other side of the table makes it feel worse. Maybe on some of those lockouts, if I’d seen a person on the other side grinding their teeth in worry, I could have been a good sport and congratulated them. Or maybe I could have seen them thinking and carefully considering when to use a negate, and respected their skill when they shut me down. Or maybe they could have played up how powerful their floodgate was and how helpless it made me, and I could have played the part of the desperate anime protagonist believing in my cards for an out. But what I master duel shows me is a faceless stranger that duels, then walks away without looking back. And that’s really easy to complain about.

This is all very true, I think the importance of your opening hand is also not to be understated. Personally I think Yu-Gi-Oh could benefit from introducing mulligans, like im Hearthstone. It feels so bad to, for example, include a bunch of handtraps because the meta demands it, and then just brick your entire hand and watch your opponent set up a board full of “you can’t play.”

As a digimon player, and former Yu-Gi-Oh one. I think it comes down to off turn interaction. Hand traps, and Omni negates suck like you said. If I lose in Digi then I piloted my turn wrong, my opponent didn't cause it

That's probably it, it feels like when you lose in Yugioh, there was nothing you could have done differently to win unless luck was somehow on your side. The game doesn't last enough turns to really let the player become the determining factor in who wins, just your opening hand. Also, people reminisce about the good ol days often not because the meta was better but because they were just playing Yugioh with friends back in school having fun with their casual decks made with whatever random cards they had. That's where Yugioh is really at it's best.

The first issue with yugioh is that you spend all this time building a unique deck (unless you net decked), and then you fight a modern opponent who just sets up to negate everything you do turn one and so you don’t get to play and use any of your cards. The second reason is that to avoid the above scenario you are forced to run things like ash blossom and maxx c just to get a chance to play an actual turn or two.

Sometimes, also ironically the best match in yugioh is when you and your opponent didn't manage to do a full combo and try to win from that spot. Other than that, it's a one turn lock bs or floodgate.

I think you hit the nail on the head as far as "robbery" goes. The game feels very sacky and regularly ends in a blowout of sorts. Not getting to play feels really bad, and so does playing everything you need to win and losing it all to only one or two cards. The fact that handtraps, floodgates, and omni-negates exist more or less leave the game in this state. The amount of power each of these cards bring to the game has made them staples to have a deck that can even compete.

I really do hate the whole idea of you can't respond to this cards. Its completely silly and not in the spirit of the game. Forcing something to take place no matter what

I find the issue being ppl get made that rouge decks win one time after a loss streak just for the meta player you’re playing against to rain on your parade. What they don’t realize, is that you finally got to prove it COULD win, despite the win ratio the meta has. Imagine having to accept you’re not winning a lot of games because you don’t want to play Sprite, you just want to beat Sprite, and your opponent is too chad and says “wooooow just one win”. We need both sides, the ones hyped for new meta and the ones who Rep Archetypes till they die, both help the spirit of the game.

The one problem with Yu-Gi-Oh for me is the feeling like you're wasting your time and money. You can spend hundreds maybe even thousands on the perfect deck and it all goes to crap when your opponent Kaijus or Nibirus you and now you have to sit there as your opponent goes through with their turn and you don't get to do anything because of the omni-negates. It's like your opponent in an MMA fight beating the living dog piss outta ya and your arms and legs don't work. You can't do anything but let your opponent do everything.

Something that I find to be a really big issue with Yu-Gi-Oh nowadays is that deck building has almost become locked. Because of hand traps and certain floodgates or staples there are certain cards you HAVE to run if you want to play your deck. And the more cards they add that are just completely broken and can essentially stop you from playing the game the more you have to fill your deck with cards to specifically counteract other specific cards which leaves less room for you to actually build a unique deck

I always feel it's the investment in building a deck and then getting shut down before you can win. I'm not into the competitive stuff that much, but getting shut down and not having a response to a long combo is frustrating; especially when you know you have that ONE CARD that can turn the game around... and I think that's because YuGiOh is inherently more gripping and exciting (which also make it more frustrating).

Love hearing Paul's opinions, he's very insightful. Interestingly enough, I don't even play modern YGO (not a hater, I just don't have the bandwidth to play anything other than Goats or 2004 Chaos). I really enjoy these videos, however. It's interesting seeing his insights into the game and getting a slight preview of what it's like these days given that following any video coverage of an event requires that I pause WAY too often to read the books of text on every card.

I've totally felt this way with Magic the Gathering as well. All my friends play such powerful commander decks that just stop you from playing the game, and it feels so horrible not being able to fight back. If there was a way to play out of those situations, I'd feel so much better. All we as players really want is to be able to play the game and win or lose be able to walk away saying "good game".

Coming from someone that started very recently (with Master Duel's release), there's a handful of things that are very frustrating. Going second being already half a loss, with the opponent setting up multiple negates before you can play with the help of searchers and other consistency tools while you sit with your random hand is the worst. I honestly think the thing this game needs the most is an universal ruling protecting both players' first turn. Negates by themselves are good as they save you from getting screwed over by something like a raigeki or whatever. But having multiple active negates before the opponent gets anything is just messed up! Personally I also dislike that, despite having cards distributed into archetypes with their own personality (which I love!) they are just not balanced at all.

I said it somewhere before and I'll say it here again: Yu-Gi-Oh has (d)evolved to a game that comes down to not letting your opponent play. You have a full combo hand? Single Maxx C from your opponent and you lost before you can even start doing anything. Your hand has only one play, but your opponent can negate that? The same story, lost before you can do anything. Going second without any of the going second cards? Scooperino. And if you do manage to play... it's only so your opponent can't play. It's not even about interactions, because every interaction at this point is there to prevent the opponent from playing. I try to use my negates only in a defensive manner but it's often a pick between losing or winning because if you don't disrupt key plays, they completely wipe your board and OTK you. To fix the game there have to be massive changes done to the fundamental rules and a LOT of errata to cards. Namely a limit on the amount of special summons a turn that reset on your standby phase and counts in the floating effects (no free normal summons out of your arse as well, you got 1 for a reason FFS and extra's should be very hard to come by), NO forms of offensive negations (this includes all the floodgates as they are offensively negating through passive means) so that people can actually play and do their plays but that they can also defend themselves when necessary. This obviously won't happen, but it would definitely make the game a lot more fun.

I'm surprised anyone still plays Yu-Gi-Oh honestly. It seems like it's just whoever gets control wins and you can't turn it around. Although, most competitive card games at a high level are that way. That's why the different formats are nice in MTG, it allows for a more controlled environment.

Why I think its more maddening to lose in YGO is because of the turn count. In Pokemon and Magic, the games will naturally go to turn 5,6,7,8 before a winner is decided In YGO, VERY RARELY, you will enter into turn 4 winning. The idea behind this is due to the draw. We all laugh at, "just draw the out" joke, but you dont get to draw that often compared to Pokemon or Magic, Vanguard and Digimon even. YGO doesnt give the player the idea that they truly exhausted the possible answers. A common joke in Magic after the match, is flipping the top cards of the Library to see if there was a possible "answer" x turns in. YGO doesnt do that, we dont flip the top of our decks and go, "wow if i managed to survive 3 turns, i couldve gotten my Raigeki!".

As someone who mostly plays Magic and came back when Master Duel released, I would like to use an analogy to help describe it, in case any fellow MTG players stumble across the video. Modern Yugioh is very much like the old stereotype of how people thought Vintage was played. Does the non-turn player have Force of Will? If yes, proceed with game. If no, save time and go to the next one. If you don't have that early and free interaction for your opponents first turn, it's just statistically over at that point.

I have begun to play YGO with MD and have been playing MtG and Pkmn for longer, take it as you wish, and I'm going to compare bo1 formats. You have pretty much nailed it. But there's a bit more. YGO condenses almost the same number of game actions of other TCGs into one or 2 turns. It is not necessarily a quicker game (time) but a shorter one (turns). Having all the power upfront means that "tripping", be it in opening hand or play, feels so much worse because the delta of what you and your opp does can get wildly wide. If it's the worst case scenario and you can't stop or break the opp board, then you likely saw them make 20 steps on 6-7 minutes and you didn't get to play the game. This can be compared to mana screw in MtG or bricking in Pkmn but in those games, you know you have turns to maybe fix your position. In YGO, failing your step (be it by bricking or interruption) can be devastating. Also, I might get to offend people here, but by condensing all that power in the early turns, it seems to me that YGO loses some of the general skills TCGs share and become a bit more mechanical, I'm mostly talking about turn navigation. In Pkmn and MtG, by design, you can't pop off immediately, this spreads game actions through several turns and leads to planning ahead in turns. Don't get me wrong, there's also planning ahead in YGO, but it becomes more about planning "specifics" than through paradigms. You plan by figuring what card you will require to refill (like getting back VW Lulu or SWSo Taia) or play around your opp card (Def for LStorm, 4 Summon incl negate for Nib) instead of setting up a line of play /plan through 4-5 turns. Both the reward and punishment comes swifter in YGO, and that takes from it while the other games keep both types of planning. Then there's the explosiveness of single cards. If you are in a top deck war, you very well know that either player can unlock an extensive line of play with certain top decks and it can be quite sacky. And to counter myself, i am describing a situation where you're planning turns ahead (set traps, keep key cards that enable more top decks) but you have been put in that position because something went wrong, and top deck wars feel bad in general. I think there is a lot to discuss because these are unpolished arguments, based on my experience and watching content, and there must be some biases too. I hope we could move this discussion to reddit perhaps.

One of the major things that drew me over to Cardfight Vanguard was that, basically hard-coded into the design of the game, each player has no choice but to actually see their opponent's primary strategy go off, and deal with it as best they can. Matches where one player just doesn't get to play the game are by and large bizarre edge cases and only very rarely become prominent in a format (I'm mostly thinking of Seven Seas grade 1 rush in G format, for folks that were playing back then). The trigger system can lead to feelings that there was just super lopsided random chance that denied any hopes of winning a game, but as someone who's been playing Vanguard for about ten years now, I can't help but feel like that sort of sensation is more of a mirage than it is a fact. It feels to me like it's extremely possible to put up really consistent x-1 and x-0 performances week to week to week at a local tournament level at the very least. Granted, the big exception to all of this is the Over Trigger released for the Over Dress series, and basically every player I've ever seen either feels guilty for winning off of one of those or salty at losing to it. It's unfortunate, but I still feel as though by and large, players have a really large amount of agency with the outcome of a game in Vanguard.

That is why mid-ranged decks in Yugioh are the most fun. Stuff that has interruptions, but not outright locking you out of the game. Swordsoul and Despia are the best two examples of that right now. They are not long combo decks and Swordsoul can only put up one omni, which I think it fine in the modern game (and easy to out). The problem is backing up those cards with stuff like Rivalry or Mystic Mine, and Anti-Spell. THAT is what end up causing problems. Soon we will be entering Splight/Teara format. Things are going to get messy after that for a while.

All these info or talk videos have been spot on in my opinion

Definitely feel like this is why best of 3 duels is so important. I feel bad winning against someone who never stood a chance so at least for both of our sake we can have at minimum 2 opportunities to have a good duel

I take every loss as a learning experience. But it’s definitely the price of certain cards

You hit the nail on the head. I've been playing a lot of Master Duel lately, and honestly winning and losing feels like robbery 90%+ of the time. It isn't about strategy or anything, you either get your combo off and you win, or your opponent does and you didn't get enough handtraps to disrupt and you lose. There's nothing satisfying about it. Back in the day, because the game was slower, this wasn't the case, you always got to play the game. Sure, sometimes you'd brick and lose in a few turns, but it still wasn't instant defeat.

I would bet that it has to do more with control aspects than price. In magic, losing to a fair deck in an expensive format is not nearly as salt inducing as losing to a control or stax deck in cheaper format

Personally some of my favorite dues (win or lose) have been the ones where it's clear that both me and my opponent bricked badly and are basically just swinging at each other until one of us actually gets what we need because we are too stubborn to just give up.

The game has been about setting up the board capable of negating or preventing one’s opponent from playing. I never saw that as healthy regardless of the power of various cards. While I don’t think this will happen, I do have a small inkling of hope they a scorched earth ban list will happen. For me, today’s game somewhat reminds me of the time period of playing against full powered six sams ages ago

When your opponent sets up a nearly impossible to beat board on the first turn and then proceeds to still Ash Blossom you on your turn.. that’s when I want kick my opponent in the face.

I quit yugioh a few years ago and have played several other card games, from my experience a lot of yugioh games came down to one person would play something that can only be dealt with by a couple of cards and the other either have the answer or would spend minutes going through a convoluted sequence of effects to to get an answer or just die. I feel that a big problem with the game is that (from an outsider who use to played for the life span of initial link) almost every deck is a similar un interactive pillow fort deck (to use a magic the gathering term meaning a deck that creates a lot of passive defences with a few more active ones) which makes it tricky to want to come back.

I've played magic for 25 years and started playing master duel when it came out. I would say that it feels as though most of the time in yugioh you are winning by not allowing your opponent to play. Either through hand traps or negates or whatever. Fun enough game, but it can be frustrating. Exorcist since there's no bo3 or mulligan system in master duel.

I remember my first deck when i got back into the game after years was a blue eyes deck that I spent hella money on lol. Long story short my first experience at a local tournament I bricked so hard and I was so salty lol.

04:06 "Artifact lands deck"? I love how this video truly feels like I'm listening to a person from some kind of alternate dimension, due to how absurdly different Yu-Gi-Oh seems, compared to every other game I've played. Like I'm listening to the only sane planeswalker who came back from some kind of eldritch dimension that's impossible to understand.

For me it's the OTK and going second. Are you even playing the game when it last 2-3mins and you know there's nothing you can do? Also going second it's about feeling helpless before it's even your turn.

Yea if Yu-Gi-Oh didn't have so many cards that just won the game for you it's feel a lot more "fair" most other games it's a race to build up your board. Yu-Gi-Oh it usually happens first turn and then the other person either breaks it completely and wins, or breaks it enough to build their board and the game starts. But even then it's rare to go on for more that like 4-5 turns. Most other games 4-5 is like the standard at least, and in those cases at least you feel like you could have done something as opposed to Yu-Gi-Oh, if they build that board first or break you board after you build it there isn't anything you can do about it. If they some how found a way to make card archetype specific so everyone couldn't just tech the new card and instead had to actually commit to the straight it belongs to I think that would help a lot

I'm at the point where I feel like letting my opponent report wins regardless of results. I did that at the last tournament and my expectations of the tournament were lowered and I actually had a lot more fun.

Thankyou for the content APS Paul! From somone comming back to the hobby from 16 years out how the game has changed. I agree with your points. From the days I started playing e.heroes were the big thing and how the game has developed alot of these powerful cards now do just tale the fun out of the game. I have been building a "competative" hero deck and the cost for building such a deck £50 for a liquid soldier and the hand traps at £50 for Ash to play a deck that shuts you off. As well I have found all the constant rule and meta changes makes the game confusing to follow. I've been trying to set up a yugioh league in my local area and we are just playing with structure decks and no side decks. So much fun. And speed duel I think has done wonders for getting new players into the game. TL;DR cost for competative decks/enjoyment of the game and knowing how to chain propperly is a big thing

I always half-joke, "I'm having fun if my opponent isn't having fun."

The one playing first always has a chance to make a combo that bring out some of the most powerful negate card that make the opponent "can't play" at all, all because most of the monsters in the Extra Deck don't specify their monster type requirement, like when you make a Baronne with any type of tuner and non-tuner, or an Accesscode Talker with any kind of effect monster, duelist really take full advantage of that. Another problem is that the rule limit 1 Normal Summon but have limitless Special Summon as long as the players can afford it, this really is a big problem, as in other games, players only get 1 or 2 summons, so when they duel, both player can play. If somehow Konami change the rule, limit the number of Special Summons each turn (like 5 or 10), when the game would be much more balanced.

I will say, as someone who started playing yugioh in 2003, and played up until about 2016, a lot of these reasons you mention, are what contributed to me giving up the game for good. I still periodically watch your videos, but on the whole, I don't even bother with the game anymore. it really has gotten to a point where it feels like if you want to have any kind of success, even at a local level, there's like 3-5 decks at any given time that you have to run, and if you don't, the it just feel like "have fun losing." while there has been decks in the past that were able to otk, or ftk, many of those came from unintended interactions with cards, and ban lists addressed that. nowadays, however, it feels like konami is purposefully creating decks that are designed around otk, or ftk. Also, the prevalence of hand traps just creates an entirely new issue. With hand traps, it feels like they are mandatory for any deck, which kind of makes deck building a little less fun, as the first thing you need to do is add in the 6-9 hand traps immediately, and then figure out how you're going to fit the rest of your deck engine in. as far as whoever gets the first turn, it has become a game of "whoever gets first turn, is probably going to win," and unfortunately the only way to really counter that is the above mentioned hand traps. The problem this creates, in my opinion, is either you stacked your deck with enough hand traps, which everyone else is running, or you HAVE to be running one of the only decks capable of pushing through walls of negates. With decks nowadays, being able to put up possibly 5-10 negations on turn 1, this just makes the game a complete bore to watch, and frustrating to play, as a lot of decks are simply "play these cards in this exact order, and win." Also, one thing I you didn't touch on, is Konami's habit of not touching problem cards on the ban list. It feels like they purposefully don't touch the key problem cards in a deck, but instead touch cards that might have a part to play in bringing out a completely broken card. I have had friends who's non meta decks were completely destroyed because 1 or more of their key cards was banned in order to address a completely broken deck, that just happened to tech a non archetype card. This sucks a lot, as a broken card can still be completely busted, but for whatever reason, they refuse to address the problem cards themselves. Lastly, is the cost of the game, which you touched on. Not only has the game become frustrating to play, but it's exacerbated by the fact that MOST people will lose at any type of competitive play, and spending sometimes thousands of dollars on a deck just makes the lost feel that much worse, especially since the only decks capable of reaching competitive play, can sit in the thousands of dollars. Combined with the way Konami seems to short print the most powerful cards, give them unnecessary rarity bumps for the TCG, it pretty much creates a form of gatekeeping, by Konami themselves, that ensures success is really only catered to those who can find, and afford said cards. I know tcg's always have an element of luck in them, but yugioh is fast becoming a game where luck is almost THE deciding factor. as much as I love the game, and as much as I have very fond memories of it, I just don't see any possible way that I would be able to find my way back to playing the game with the state it's in. Unless their is a dramatic shift in the game itself, yugioh will have to just be in the past for me. i know this ran longer than I intended, but there's just so much I miss about the game, and wish I could get back into it, but the game has just left me behind.

I can only count a handful of time where I had games with good back and forth interaction with close calls. Now its either you loose because you can't do anything or you loose because you didn't draw the out.

I love the meta especially this meta BUT when your opponent has an answer for everything you have going second is just the most infuriating thing ever … imagine going through all your opponents boards negates, just to get Imperm’d or Effect Veiler’d. Or just getting Floodgated out. It’s awful. The meta is in a good place right now though. Spright format though is not going to be fun though … free negates and a 3000+ monster … I’m seriously considering a break

When I got back into Yu-Gi-Oh around the time links were introduced I was interested in getting into local competitive stuff but once I learned how expensive and unfun it can be, I just decided to stay playing casually with cards that I enjoy and I'm much happier for it

For me, the OTK/speed to win as well as the vastly increased complexity of it is what's keeping me from returning after over 10 years. The fun of any card game is the back and forth and the knowledge that you can be one card away from winning or losing.

Great video man. You brought up a ton of really interesting points and really hit the nail on the head. I think the problem is with the format itself. Meta decks are just straight up bullshit - call it for what it is. Monsters that omni-negate anything, one card combos to summon multiple monsters, and the ability to stop your opponent from playing entirely. It's ridiculous - no one enjoys playing against that. But people want to win, so the only possible way to do so is to make a toxic meta deck themselves. They get a sense of 'satisfaction' from stopping their opponent's bullshit cards, using their own bullshit cards. Thus, toxicity breeds more toxicity, and you arrive at the format we have now. Whoever loses the coin flip usually loses, period. And what makes it even more ridiculous is they have to sit through their opponent playing solitaire for five minutes, just to come to a total roadblock once the turn is finally passed to them. It's utter nonsense, and the furthest thing from what used to make this game fun and interactive. This format, or rather, this "style" of playing - that is, you play for one long ass turn and your opponent doesn't - has fundamentally broken the game, and simply needs to go. I think the only way forward is with a new, incredibly bold ban list, and maybe possible changes to the summoning mechanics somewhere down the line. Coming from someone who thoroughly loves the game by the way. No hate, just a cry for help. Thanks for the great vid

I've seen someone punch his opponent over activating Mystic Mine at a local once. I had a friend who used to be super cocky about activating said card constantly that i've felt the same way lol.. It's those reasons you listed that i've slowly moved away from the game and have been thinking of selling off my collection...

Imo the reason why ygo feels extra bad to lose in is because of the level of interactivity. When I lose in ygo compared to other games, it doesn't feel like I got outskilled or that it was even a good match. When I lose in ygo it always just feels like they had the answer, and that the answer was stupid. Of Course they had Ash, of course they had nib, of course they had 4 negates on board cause they won a coin flip. I'm okay with losing to someone better than me, frankly I find it kinda cool to lose to someone better than me cause I can see the skill gap and have something to work towards. I don't think I've ever lost a duel and went "man, that guy was just a *pilot*. That was sick."

Love these videos, very nuanced take

I appreciate these talking points, I very much think about these things very similarly to you. Where we differ though is in our hopes for the game as a whole, you still believe in it and play it, while I don't do either. Not because I don't like the game, but rather because I see intentional design within the game and its monetization that makes it clear for me that the aim of the game is exactly to exploit saltiness, RNG and high roll, high cost cards, in a very similar way casinoes do, and has been forever, they've just become more efficient and adept at it. Konami has a big stake in Pachinko and Gacha in Japan which is essentially their form of gambling, so they have strong ties to that very thing. The way you say "we need to get rid of one card flood gates" is exactly what we need, but the matter of the fact is that we don't get to decide that or have much of an influence because we don't have ownership of the game and those that do simply have other priorities than the health of the gameplay overall, their priority is early and big revenue which they try to fulfill by aggresive marketing, design, etc. all focused on selling chase cards and the packs and boxes they come in. The only way these things will make a genuine difference is if we make something similar to Commander in MTG, a crowd sourced format maybe even with ability to errata cards, then something can be done.

The thing about Yu-Gi-Oh specifically is that the win-con has always been the same- make it so your opponent can't play. Whether that's by destroying their field and hand with Chaos Emperor Dragon, shuttiing their extra deck down with Domain Monarchs, or locking out Spell/Traps with Anti-Spell fragrance - the win-con has always been about playing in a way which the losing player will take as unfair; because it is. That's how you win. The issue is that since the carpool doesn't rotate (an aspect of the game I personally enjoy), the sheer number of ways you can lock out your opponent is ridiculous, and no one deck can possibly come out on top Vs all of them- but that's ok. It creates variety. The problems arise when a random one-of inclusion from outside the deck's main archetype (such as Imperial Order) hits the field, because it gives the deck an unfair tool they have no right to be able to access, and the odds of an opponent having it are so slim, it turns the game into a coin-toss. I don't think floodgates in themselves are the worst, but ones which can be run in any deck are deeply problematic. Swordsoul is a good deck. Swordsoul backed up by Vanity's Emptiness is ridiculous.

Yugioh has become a game of extremes. You either draw the out to your opponents board and win, or don't and lose. The biggest determining factor now is luck. It is infuriating to lose now because there is nothing you can do about it. It is out of your control. Especially when you spend so much time and money on decks to play and end up not getting to play, it all feels like a huge waste. I'm not sure how this game can be fixed but that is Konami's job and they haven't been doing well at that. Something needs to be be done soon.

I play competitive Pokemon player and it definitely feels different, is the aspect of impotence when every card you use gets negated and sensation of how luck in the first hand can literally decide the outcome. I don't know know if what I say makes sense.

This was a really great video with a really great topic. I think you were basically 100% correct on why players feel so bad after losing in this game unlike other games. Hopefully the next banlist will fix much

As someone that has been playing Yugioh ever since the beginning and other card games (Vanguard for 7 years and Digmon since it was brought to the states just to name a few) the main issue when I lose a game of Vanguard or Digimon is VASTLY different compared to losing in Yugioh. The main issue is that Yugioh is a card game that doesn't have mechanical ways where you can attempt to out a board. In vanguard with lock being an oppressive mechanic people were able to counter it by not calling out much or just by having 1 rearguard then just mainly swing with a restanding vanguard to counter it. Digimon can change the tempo due to what happens in security or just having a strong board. Yugioh its always like "OH you only won because I didn't draw X card to break your board" or "Damn I didn't open my hand trap to stop you from doing your 20 minute combo". Big example is with Mystic Mine, "OH you don't play backrow removal in the form of a spell/trap card and you dont play multiple copies in the main deck? well just activate this and I will win." Basically you have to HAVE a card to potentially counter the opponent just to even have a chance to play in some situations. Its one of the main reasons why I left playing competitive yugioh because the game gotten so fast that this is a legitimate problem and the worst part is that there is no way to fix the game anymore.

I imagine it's a lot different if you're playing something online like master duel, or if it's in real life. So far only experiences online stuff, but my frustration is playing against unbreakable boards or just the slog of setting up your side every single time. Granted, that could be because I play PK, and the slog of setting up my board each time is exhausting lol.

When we go past the 2nd turn and there's actual back and forward interaction is mostly due because neither players had the one card to floodgate, stun, or wipe the opponent's board in one move. Many times I also wished my oponent either negated or destroyed one of my cards instead of the clause:"negate and if you do destroy the boss monster your oponent spent 15 cards putting together" .🙄 But now even spot removal is evolving to a point in which your oponent can tribute your back row to summon his monsters (Flwoondereze) something I've never seen before 😤 Yugioh is definitely reaching a power ceiling in my opinion. 😮‍💨

I’ve lost games because I misplayed with one card sitting in my hand…whether it be misreading the effect or just forgetting about it. For example, I forgot to set Called by the Grave and my opponent hard drew Misc the next turn. I died because I couldn’t interact with UCT. That’s the thing about Yugioh.

Losing has never been an issue, for me it's the turn length. I don't know when it started in the game's history but my opponent can basically activate half or 3/4th of their deck, if I had an unlucky draw, taking nearly 6-8 minutes for their turn. I tend to play decks that have maybe 7-10 cards to activate max, taking perhaps a minute or two, at most, because I know how annoying it can be to watch your opponent endlessly setup and build a field of omni-negates and All-Protect. After quite a number of matches where my opponent would draw half of their deck on turn 1 or 2, taking 5-7 minutes of my time, that's when I realized this game is no longer for me, especially as the power creep continues to get worse and worse in Master Duel from Flowundereeze and the "stick it in everything" DPE and Adventure Engine; I've been told the future only gets worse from here.

I feel like the big difference in losing in this game is because people spend countless dollars and hours trying to build a deck to compete only to be out played by a person who has done it, but for longer and more money. I also believe that yugioh is so mechanically inclined that if you don’t get to play you reach a point of frustration because you couldn’t even play or compete.

"It feels like robbery," is the main reason cards used to hit the ban list. Now it's just been pushed to the norm with each new set release.

Master Duel really showed this for me, I had been playing Pokemon TCG and MTG before coming back to Yu-Gi-Oh, and it can be just... It's not what I would soul-crushing, but it's more like I sat down to play again, not shuffle cards when I get shut down. It almost feels sometimes like it would save time to not draw your opening hand until you know if it could even matter or not XD I know I probably sound pretty casual, but when I pick a game, I'm pretty much all in on it. My KZfaq feed turns into whatever game I'm playing at the time, so I learned pretty quick, but all my friends dropped it and just got tired of playing it because it was just too many dead out the gate games...

I like when a match actually builds up over multiple turns. When you can be in a bad situation but still can come back if you play smart and draw the right cards. Now everything gets decided within the first few turns and your starting hand pretty much determines your win possibilities to a huge degree, which feels shitty and unbalanced. It's way more fun if the game was a bit slower and allowed for an actual back and forth between players imo. That's my main problem with the current state of Yugioh

As a casual, beginner and mostly online player, I haven't had the experience yet to meet salty, angry players, but I heard sooo much about it being very common in the YGO community. That's one of the main reasons I am scared to try out locals, to be honest. 😅 I do kinda get where they might come from, though. I mean, yes, at the end of the day it's "just a game", but for me personally it would take a long time to be able to even build a meta deck for example, because of the financial aspect. I imagine it can be quite frustrating if you put so much money, time and effort into something that's important to you and a passion of yours and then still losing... I like that you said this is not a recent thing though and that salty players have always existed in the community, even in the "good old days" when the game was much less complex. I mean, we even see it a lot in the classic Duel Monsters anime, Kaiba is the saltiest player - and loser to Yugi and Atem - of all time! 🤣 Cool video as always, Paul! 🙌

Solid video and well spoken. I agree with your stance. Lingering floodgate effect like dimensional barrier, scythe, lancea should be stripped from the game. I'd rather have winda drop on me turn 0, then be scythe locked. I can actually interact with the winda... I've also believed that they have been printing way too many omni negates. Baiting someone's spell negation effect should sometimes leave them vulnerable to spells. My biggest concern now is the emergence of cards which your opponent cannot respond to (e.g. Droplet or Slayer). If Konami's solution to the "omni negate hole" they dug is to further remove interaction from the game, yugioh is going to be an unattractive game.

I think you did really well in breaking this down. I feel like as someone who new(ish)ly got into master duel I’ve been sat at my playstation just wondering why I’m even playing. I did start with Dark World of all things though… had a real bad time before I discovered Danger and crafted Super Poly. I feel dirty for it, but I too have to survive in the cold streets of new domino city.

Honestly I think Konami is making an effort (time will determine if it was a decent effort or not) with new versions of the game like rush duels. Its invigorating but I do think there should be more of a push ( of course by Konami, but mainly the community) to embrace new game versions, as it may end up being a more balanced, and by extension, fun experience.

Most other card games make you feel powerful and in control. Yugioh often makes you feel powerless and helpless.