I´d argue that 2023/2024 was probably as bad if not worse than 2017/18. Except for the rarity collections, there was not much pro-player-orientated decision made by Konami. And all the drama around competitive yugioh just made it even more of a burning pot. I hope we will find balance in the future. Not expecting much from Konami though.
@ eh, modern yugioh is very much established at that recent point. We’re already accustomed to the break my board style of gameplay and 5 minute cutscene combos. 2017-2018 was a tumultuous time of change and if you weren’t on board with it you quit. 2023 onwards is just that acceptance phase of the 5 stages of grief.
@ The concept was a good idea as he pointed out early in the video, but in practice we had a period of tier 0/FTK competitive formats. And it was the Great Leap Forward into the sort of turn 1 hyper combo nonsense that is the present day game, although sure the environment is in a better state than it was in those years.
@@connermorgan9223 no it was not 😂😂. Dude if i broke a board after they spammed the field the game would pretty much always slow down and be in favor of me after punishing them. Now they got 1 card resets.
To me, Link monsters are essentially dumbed down synchro monsters. My issue with the Link mechanic as a whole is not only did it fail in setting out what it was meant to do (slowing down the game), but the loose restrictions combined with their powerful effects turned a gradual extra deck power creep into a massive spike.
I have always compared Link monsters to lazy contact fusions. Doesn't need any other card requirement besides the monsters themselves. The only difference is the contact fusion monsters are a little more specific when it comes to materials. Besides that, they both are essentially just send two monsters on the field for an extra deck monster.
And a chunk of contact fusions shuffled the materials back into the deck rather than them ending up in graveyard so the GY wouldn't just instantly flood with tons of monsters. Maybe if some Links did that they wouldn't be the near universal "send on field monsters to the GY to activate their GY effects for a net positive" card pool that they are
I've noticed that whenever decks come out that aren't Link based but fusion, synchro or xyz based they are designed to get around their own summoning rules so they can keep up with Link monsters.
Main problem with Links imo is that there isn’t really a downside to playing Links. Unless Links utilises specific attributes of the games restrictions (Link Rating, Co-Linked, Linked, Column, Rows, Zones), I don’t they’ll be fixed. To start off with an idea to fix Links, change their requirements to be a lot more specific and zone/summon heavy.
@ Fusion: Fusion Spell, though some Decks entirely ignore it. Synchro: Tuners/Non-Tuners, but Synchro specific decks don’t care. Xyz: Materials but Xyz Decks generate materials easily. Pendulums: Their Scales.
Link monsters are always in attack position and can't be in defense. It leaves an opening for battle damage. Sure, there is piercing damage and other forms of effect damage in YGO. However, not every deck runs cards with those effects.
Its not the link monster is the problem, it just that they fasten the game and somehow konami make a long ass combo deck where they forget its actually 2 Players who play the game. Its already a big warning when during the xyz era, where they started to make OTK become more popular if where you can summon 3 monsters with 2700 in 1 turn and the end result with OTK if there no monster or trap guard your field, you will got otk-ed. There are other UA-cam video that i found said how yugioh problem is "don't have resources" which is actually not. In before when we play yugioh, because we know the existence of harpie feather duster, heavy storm, raigeki, dark hole, torrential tribute, we try to plan how many set card or summon because we want to have follow up next turn. Synchro era give a chance to get our mid boss monster come easily and most of populer mid boss monster are have a good defense and protection, and how Stardust Dragon, Starlight Road and My Body as Shield become a game changing. Xyz era probably become the best part where the speed is really good but not that really broken. When pendulum come, combo deck become more popular as if you see magician pendulum and entermate where you have to "destroy" in order to search and stack your pendulum card in your extra deck. And some of them become like a meme. And then before link era, probably Mayakashi is the one the start of "climb" combo deck. End of pendulum and the start of link era i stopped playing because how the limitation block the way we playing. But i still know the concept of link monster, because i watch VRAINS, and laugh how each player doing solo talk summoning by himself doing a climb combo, which is really stupid at all😂 despite the story, art and mechanism are great. When master duel come, i come back play and want to see, what change in the game, and suprised how fast the game come and somehow "combo deck" become a meme. The yugioh i know where you prepare each turn for the next turn already gone, and become the Solitaire game we are know now. Also they release so many "Omni negate" since Quasar Dragon and somehow all of them are really easy be summoned, its kinda hilarious.
Master Rule 4 together with link monsters really was the single biggest design mistake Konami has ever made with this game. Instead of using the banlist to ban the problem cards they decided to paywall the extra deck behing link monsters, a mechanic that filtered out any deck that could not afford the resources to summon a link monster before going into their own extra deck monsters, which was pretty much every single casual deck. It was supposed to curb the power of pendulums, but pendulums weren't that big of an issue competitively. It's the non-competitive decks that could not keep up with the pendulum summon, so the design of MR4 and link monsters makes no sense in regard to game balancing. All it achieved at that time was killing 95% of the decks. When it comes to the person responsible of the card design in Japan retiring from their function, I couldn't agree more. For quite a while I have been incredibly frustrated with the cards coming out of the OCG in particular. From their card design, overly relying on going first, and competitive boards overly relying on disruptions to stop the opponent from playing the game. Then there is their unwillingness to use the banlist to ban problem cards and print band-aid fixes instead. They introduce problems, but instead of fixing the problem, they sell you back the solution to that problem, or design archetypes that play around that problem. The most infuriating example can be seen when the TCG exclusives Nibiru, DRNM and Shifter were introduced to the OCG. With Nibiru adding as an additional check to combo decks, instead of banning Maxx C, they designed their combo archetypes to be able to play around Nibiru, and to prevent them from being broken my DRNM, they let them end a trap to stop DRNM, because they already have Maxx C to keep combo decks in check. It has greatly contributed to this game's power creep, and made combo decks absurd for the TCG, with Superheavy Samurai being a notorious example. They can't even design a decent going second deck without having it ignore any interaction from your opponent, I'm of course talking about Tenpai. They should learn to design archetypes that are good going first, but better going second. But most important of all, they REALLY need to use their banlist more aggressively to kill problem cards, including those who cause design issues.
The problem Is: how do you do that? In the deluge of build-a-board negate going first decks or floodgates, how do you make a going second deck good? It either plusses anyway when negated, is an unresponsive mess like tenpai, or has so many one card starters that anything short of 6 negates is confirmed full combo. Handtraps and negates in combination have created this weird meta state where even half built boards still kill you anyway, so it's always all or nothing. Unless we actually, genuinely, start realizing that generic omni negation should not be printed on anything short of a shooting quasar-like card that requires jumping through several hoops to get to, and start banning A LOT of cards, the problems will always return.
@@starbound100 1: Ban the generic extra deck monsters that needlessly increase the ceiling of combo decks, which the TCG has been doing 2: Make hand traps that only work as disruption for the player that goes second while they control no cards. This prevents them from being additional interruptions for the player that goes first, also reducing the ceiling of the player that goes first. 3: Give archetypes in-archetype hand trap-like monsters that allow the player to set-up turn 1 when they go second. Think the Lab Furtinure or R-ACE Airlifter, but not full combo like Havnis. 4: Give archetype cards bonus effects designed for going second, making it easier for them to play through an established board. Think adding a special summon while your opponent controls a monster, or adding an additional search, or destroying an opponent's card to bait a negate. 5: With point 4 in mind, also have archetypes be able to beat the board they themselves can establish when you design them. When you apply these 5 changes you should be able to make go second decks viable again, as you are creating archetypes that are not designed purely as a go first or a go second deck, but as decks that are both. That's the main change in core archetype design that this game needs imo.
Thing is; it's been confirmed by an Ex-Konami card designer that both English and Japanese card designers all work on new cards at the same time. As in, even though Japan gets cards first, English designers HELPED create those cards to begin with. Both teams will sit on video calls and go through mechanics of new cards and new archetypes for months to a year ahead of it's release in Japan and this person had worked on Yugioh up until like... 2016 or something. He has been featured on one of the Yugituber channels ranting modern cards on kf their banned or not. Forgot which one. Will have to dig. Therefore, the issue isn't Japan and their play style/methods, it's Konami's design philosophy as a whole that's the problem.
Question what are you thought on where pendulums stand in the latter of the game and by pendulums I mean only a singular pendulum archetype that being odd eyes and I don’t wanna here anything about z-arc cause it for one doesn’t have odd eye in it’s name nor do I want to hear anything about arc ray cause that thing barely qualifies for odd eyes support one last bit to you think odd eyes should get it’s gate cards from the anime and a new odd eye link monster pendulink sounds nice and would actually be a good way to deal with the sole banishing problem of odd eyes
@@lorenbrown7100 So you're asking me with a lot of words what I think about Odd-Eyes. I'm not familiar with the Arc-V anime, though Odd-Eyes Pendulum Magicians was my favorite deck during MR3. As for Odd-Eyes itself as a deck, it need way more than just cards from the anime to be good, as it's being held back because it's a pendulum archetype, and pendulum archetypes that rely on the pendulum summon to do anything are just straight up bad under MR5. What I think about Pendulums in general though? That the mechanic is awful right now. The MR4 restriction on it can easily be reverted with the amount of power creep that has happened since their introduction, save for giving them back their own pendulum zones. It's a 3 card combo mechanic at minimum in a game where 1-2 card combos have become the standard. Games no longer last long enough either for the pendulum summon to matter in a grind game either. The risk vs reward with this mechanic is completely off right now. That said, there is a lot of space for create card design when it comes to pendulum monsters, something Konami tried to tackle with Vaalmonica. In Superheavy Samurai and Melodious we have also seen Konami use pendulum monsters to improve non-pendulum decks with success. There's a lot of design space left with the mechanics, and with a good amount of creativity we can see pendulum archetypes that don't rely on the pendulum summon, or are at risk of becoming part of a pendulum pile.
I rejoined the game during 2018, and to this day I wonder how the hell I’m still here. Between the gumblar loop, trickstar burn, several ftks, and sky striker. And the center of most of them, link monsters. Now in hindsight links went from a lesser of evil made to slow down the game. To a mechanic that’s so maddeningly hard to balance it eventually revealed itself as a half baked idea it was. While the link era did give us toss format, and in hindsight I am grateful that it gave us sky striker. I just wish I didn’t have to experience the piles of BS that came with it.
Atleast you got something pendulum barely got anything per usually you know how bad we got nerfed let’s see we can’t do what our mechanic was intended to do without a link and even still that’s limited every other deck can do what pendulums did in the past with little to no restriction maxxx c is our best friend solely because more cards in hand and scales not to mention as I said every deck just swarms the field with monsters yet he we are unable to do that because one duster and look our scales are gone Konami fix your game and while your at it throw in some love for odd eyes cause arc ray really was not intended in any way for odd eyes also also odd eye gate cards from the anime I need fusion synchro and xyz those boss monster are nearly impossible 1 of them atleast
Every extra deck mechanic is basically contact fusing with extra steps except for pendulum. That is the only truly unique summing mechanic. Everything else can be explained like a contact fusion just with the materials required being hyper specific case in point like two monsters with the same level or two monsters with a specific level 2. Mi is whose levels is equal, a certain amount and all that can still be worked into Contact fusing. Which is basically what they did. Instead of riding the claws on the fusion card that you contribute monsters that meet certain conditions to special selling this car from the extra day they just took that clause, made a game mechanic so they didn't have to write it on the card. And then they just gave each card a special material requirements and change the color of the card.
I dislike them because they took the best of older extra deck mechanics with almost none of the downsides(ex. Synchros are explosive but they need tuners and they can use tokens as materials, xyz are easier to summon but they're not usually as explosive and can't use tokens as materials, links are easier to summon, more explosive than the other two and can even use tokens, dude are you like that little kid who claims he's immortal in the playground so he can win all the time?), making links objectively the best mechanic overall, plus their horrible introduction made more people quit than Chaos format + DAD format combined I would argue.
My hot take Links were NEVER meant to slow rhe game down, they were meant to take it over the way Pendulums didn't like Synchro or Xyz did before it where they were just the most dominant mechanic during their generation If their goal was to slow the game down it makes zero sense to print any of them with extension effects they would a barrier that requires you to build into an extra deck summon And imo Pendulum is the one mechanic that DOESN'T deserve the Link nerf the others just do
link monsters are too easy to summon which is pretty much why I despise them, in my mind extra deck monsters are supposed to require some form of setup to summon, but link just throws that out of the window and ruins half of the game for me, at least fusion is still a good choice but hey, if you like link monsters, go ahead and have fun. I'm just a person ranting a lil so enjoy yourself with link monsters and keep winning those duels
I wish pendulum summoning didn’t require links seriously if every deck nowadays can flood the field might as well remove the nerf from pendulums bring them back to their glory also a odd eyes link card would be nice
They promote efficiency to an almost uncompromising degree due to how flexible they are. At some point you have to argue why link 1s even exist. Today into Fiendsmith requiem, yesterday it was striker dragon. They just allow decks to be so tight and then people fill up on hand traps making thjngs just feel so cringe.
@@SoraBell I really like that about Links. I don't find bricking or inconsistency to be fun. So link monsters being really flexible allows for you to have a gameplan you can execute every game while playing around hand traps. I like the direction yugioh is going personally.
The problem is that MR4 came out, in which a lot of decks suffered from the link arrow requirement. Konami then gave a lot of archetypes a broken link monster to remedy the problem. However, the rule then got reverted in MR 5, allowing those old decks to return at full power. However, all those broken link monsters that were given to the archetypes still exist.
explain how pendulums are broken their practically he most balanced thing in game cause atleast you don’t see us banishing your field while your having your turn or atleast you don’t see us banishing your deck when you active a simple card looking at every meta deck funny how pendulum was considered the worst mechanic now look at it really is the worst mechanic since normal monsters can swarm in full effect meanwhile pendulum got nerf because no reason at all hypocrites I say
("You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind) until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy". I appreciate that opening Cali 💪🏽
i can confirm that myself, i was enjoying the zoodiac format while playing galaxy-eyes but the moment i saw the master rule changes and how they force every deck to play links i just quit the game for years until mr5 came out
As someone who's first deck is Salamangreat cuz of Soulburner revive my awkward anime crush (My first yugioh anime is Vrains) despite the problem of the mechanic it still my favorite summoning mechanic, something about them that make it feels like a guilty pleasure, i can see the reasonable amount of hatred but i will always defende my Salamangreat.
I dislike the how generic many of the link monsters are and I hate that engine requirements were moved into the extra deck. These two changes have removed risks from deck building and removed the toolbox utility found in the extra decks of older formats.
@@Knightmare0259 You have the Knightmares and more recently SP little Knight and decks still play Accesscode Talker. Id say that Links have that Toolbox property. Plus decks like snake still have to play engine bricks like ogre and flamberg.
Truly informing, this style of video is beyond helpful for new or returning players like myself from back before when it was just called a fusion deck. Getting into it now and even getting my friend to get back into is sometimes difficult because of all the mechanics added. Love this style of video Cali keep up the good work big dawg
Wdym link monsters suck they are extremely splashable, they are simple to summon provided you are only using a few, and playable strategies come about about as often as fusion synchros, or xyz ones do, so explain to me why it is you think link monsters suck
I actually like Links, I came back into the game right as Links were debuting in Yugioh. Links became absolutely busted within a year. I almost quit in 2018 because of the FTK and then took a small break in 2019. Links did the opposite. Konami was hoping it would dom
At the risk of sounding selfish, the introduction of link monsters alone killed my favorite deck of all time, dark synchro. I was finally able to play at a moderately high level and was having fun doing so. That was peak yugioh for me. Nothing about the game has been even half as exciting as my dark synchro days. Links really killed the vibe for me. Even tearzero format didn't feel as bad (but it came close) because I had already experienced the darkest timeline possible in yugioh. Screw 2018 yugioh..
I love these videos of yours that go over the history of yugioh. Although I watched a bit of the show growing up, I didn’t get into the game until I was an adult. Thanks Cali :)
The second you said TOSS format a tear came to my eye. That was probably one of the best formats I have ever played in the game and look at it for the standard modern yugioh should be played like but probably won’t happen again.
Funny enough I actually quit playing Yu-Gi-Oh when i heard you can only special summon monster from the extra deck by linking it. I some how knew that the game was taking the wrong turn, and the old Yu-Gi-Oh that I know and love was dead.
I feel as though Links are somewhat unbalanced in the sense that they don’t typically require specific materials like Synchros or XYZ which makes link climbing much more spam-able. They usually don’t need an extra card or effects like fusions to be summoned, either. If the monsters were far more restricted and locked you from doing stuff for example, I feel as though the mechanic would be much more balanced. Make them only usable in-archetype, but very powerful within. HERO is a good example of this. That is just my opinion, however. ( RDA BEST DECK!!!! )
tbf that was sorta the point of links; that they didnt require specific materials but they definitely should require at least adjacent specific stuff like at least 1 monster belonging to the specific archetype or has a similar trait as that of monsters in the archetype which is something more commonly seen in newer link monsters instead of simply being “effect monster” the majority of the time if not making the requirements more restrictive then at least the effects should be similar to how some rank up xyz works where some or all effects is locked unless they were made using specific materials like there would be less complaint about something like accesscode if at least 1 of its effects was locked behind needing to summon it using another code talker for example
A combination of: - Konami twisting players arms to play them at the start with Master Rule 4. - Being so jokingly easy to summon that they almost invalidate the older summoning mechanics anyway. - Having a horrible trend of being horrifically overpowered which continues to this day (just check the banlist and count the number of Links compared to any other extra deck cards) does not breed a positive relationship with the playerbase.
could you make a video on why zoodiac was so powerful i hear horror stories about it but i wasnt playing competitvly at it's peak and dont know why it was so strong
So many cards for synchros had to be banned bc of links… worst mechanic ever. MR5 was a step in the right direction but the game should do a hard reset and ban the entire link mechanic
I hated that Konami made a master rule where you are coerced into playing link monsters. Plus for budget players extra deck means extra money. Gone where days where playing with an extra deck was optional. Now playing with a extra full of staples is a must
I’ve been getting back into Yu Gi oh & all these links synchro summons have been tough on me. I don’t know how to do it. Is there anyway you can make a video of creating a powerful but easy deck that can take on synchro & links please
My two problems with the summoning type is that cyberse Monsters do nothing but link spam to create stupidly op boards and any new or non cyberse link monsters are made way to generically to be fair to other extra deck strategies
Konami also needs to understand the more cards get banned, the more players will indicate that buying cards becomes more pointless in the long-term. Granted, binders will stack ...but then what, 20 years to play a card finally un-banned? I'm a dedicated fan holding onto my favorite cards and I'm crazed for the new Cyberdark support rn along w/ other sick cards, and i actually like links so long as they fit the deck players like, but some meta plays are obsessive making it harder to authenticate without hyper technicalities... It's bittersweet, but i love the game.
As a new player the thing that stands out to me, is that you basically can’t build an extra deck without a couple of the stronger generic monsters generic Link monsters. I think that’s what a lot of players hate. A couple of slots in your deck simply have to go to SP Little Knight, IP Masquerena, etc. A lot of players don’t like auto-include cards because they limit deckbuilding options.
Who cares you boomers have been saying this since synchro monsters get over it. Nobody wants to run whatever jank decks y’all think are fair and good most of them suck
@@Toadflax6869 don’t forget back then they had some of the most broken spells and traps available most of them just didn’t read them till the “pro” players did. Catapult turtle ftk and hand ripping for 4-5 wasn’t that hard.
Love the videos. I play YGOpro when not religiously working on music. My favorite decks have always been the generic waifu decks However my most proud deck was an Odd Eyes Rocket link deck BEFORE dragon link was a thing. When dragon link became meta I just went back to the waifu archetypes as I felt personally insulted by Konami for even attempting to be relatively creative
I dont hate link monsters. I hate how komoney handled link monsters. Especially the first year of link monsters. Not everyone got a link monster, the change to the mechanic which they had to revise (fixed it but not much) and, let's be honest the first wave as a result of we didn't want the issues we cause (synchos).
@HarpiePlayerJoeHPJ I never played back then, so i cant say much about the release of links besides what ive heard, but I really like the state of the game currently except for cards like Shifter and Droll. I'm not a fan of blanket floodgate effects that shut off an entire mechanic of the game. If they removed that the game would be peak.
Honestly 😂 when links were first introduced to the game, I had recently come back to Yu-Gi-Oh! I thought it was gonna be something amazing something that would limit us players and give newer players a chance. We. Were. Wrong. 😂
Lots of link based decks are cool and fun. But damn they sure were the enabler for ”Modern Yugioh” where a card like Raigeki can’t find Main Deck play as I need my 1 body to turn into 4-6 disruptions + followup and then 3 hand traps in hand to make sure my opponent will never stick a card. But Striker, Orcust and Salamangreat were peak YGO as you got to do flashy combos, back and forth games and 1 card in all of those decks would give you… 1 negate/send and grind game! Want a bigger board? More engine! Branded Swordsoul era wasn’t too bad either, unless they protos’d you out of the game… The boards were easy enough to play into! And neither had 15min combos (At that point.)
the link mechanic seems cute on first glance.. they have arrows that point to where you can summon more, they only have an ATK stat. but the more it unravels.. - link climbing is too easy - tokens are now unbalanced - way too easy to just dump cards to get their GY effects
Yh as someone that only got back into the game in 2021 it'd be great to see a video about cards and decks that caused real issues for players back then - I'm a big history mut tbf about all things including YU-GI-OH
Konami’s so concerned about making Pendulum Monsters too powerful, meanwhile Link Monsters are overpowered by design. However, there are Link-based strategies that are balanced, such as @Ignister.
It's the easiest to make with good effects without changing youre deck two much or not at all. They have become a must for alot of Decks or we wish links for our favorite Decks. So it's a love and hate
If the link monsters and cards released during link era focused more on zone it points to or other certain zones, then it would be much more funny and less power crept Oh well, let's hope next master rule mechanic isn't as silly
I don’t hate Link Monsters entirely but I have a couple gripes with it (my apologies I am a normie duelist who plays Master Duel) 1: The fact that any archetype that tends to struggle with its gameplan gets a link monster as a sort of fix. Example: Why do I need to play Wise Strix in Raidraptor? The deck that focuses on xyz and rank-ups? 2: And this is mostly from my Master Duel experience, I dislike some link monsters that enable things that I just don’t like. Primarily cards like saryuja skull dread in Six Samurai and especially Verte Anaconda spitting out DPE and now currently Dragoon. As if meta decks weren’t strong enough as is now I gotta deal with those too💀.
Also, FTR, I'm a degenerate and I love Link monsters. Yeah, some are obnoxious and suck and make not fun game states, but others are really great and make old decks more playable. So That's neat.
Eh. I play some pretty high level yugioh and solitaire was never an actual thing outside ACTUAL tier 0 formats (not the ones where the top decks are pretty good and not absolutely broken like SPYral).
Neither Links, nor pendulums should have even happened. They should have had the balls to make THOSE mechanics into their own game, like rush, instead of dragging the entire brand down out of fear. They KNEW it wouldn't be received well.
And they deserve more. Everything people hate on pendulums for were actually the problem links introduced. +90% of ftks and t0 formats the game had ever seen happened during the mr4 to mr2020 period while pendulums were always a nonfactor in the competitive scene.
On a sidenote, if you want to Collab together on a Yu-Gi-Oh! history video, I have a whole playlist of retro formats going in depth as a retrospective series on my channel!
You should make a video on the best yugioh era as far as cards and play. My opinion was 5D’s w/ synchro at the time the only other xtra deck monster was fusion to summon synchro was a set up there was strategy to Summon it and I think the game was the most balance at the time. I feel like any archetype was capable of beating top tier decks at the time and decks were more unique not like nowadays where everyone have the same staples I.e hand effects. But it just my opinion
I hate xyz more than any other mechanic. The only thing I can hate about link monsters is how it hurts pendulums. Especially since pendulums doesn't deserve any of the hate it gets
I quit the game during the goki hand loop format and never came back Watching these videos make me thankful I didn't. The games also so expensive compared to other card games that you can play multiple meta decks in other games for the price of a playset of one staple secret rare. 😩
To be honest, I miss pendulum monsters. Link monsters are pain in the arse as they are far too easy to use and too easy to get out. They allow you to play through too much stuff. It should have ended at a retrain or mechanic change to ritual monsters.
My biggest problem is that cards like SP Little Knight are in every single decklist I see. Personally I’ve always thought that card should be banned for that reason. Force people to get more creative.
Link monsters wouldve been a fantastic mechanic if they didnt make them a generic mess that was used to just powercreep everything to the moon and semi-obligatory for the longest time. Accesscode is cool until every deck plays it and plays it easily
To those saying links were supposed to slow down the game, that was never the intended purpose. The link arrow restriction was not there to slow down the game, it was there to force people into buying link monsters.
I’ve played since 2007, and I’ll tell you the root problem. If you go back to 3:00 to 3:19 this is EXACTLY the problem. Pendulum.. Link summoning was created to bandage the pendulum issue. This is why so many yugioh players left the scene! Konami simply should have never created pendulum because then link summoning would’ve never been a thing, as link summoning was the solution for pendulum. IMO, they should have kept it at xyz and synchros and just balanced the game out without power creep……
Besides, reading a lot of these comments I can clearly see that a lot of ppl who supported link summoning are more recent players…. (Meaning started playing 2015+) that says a lot about the state of the game. Where did all the original yugioh players go? I wonder… lmfao..
2017-2018 was probably the darkest time in the game's history. And Konami learned all the wrong lessons from it.
I´d argue that 2023/2024 was probably as bad if not worse than 2017/18. Except for the rarity collections, there was not much pro-player-orientated decision made by Konami.
And all the drama around competitive yugioh just made it even more of a burning pot.
I hope we will find balance in the future. Not expecting much from Konami though.
@ eh, modern yugioh is very much established at that recent point. We’re already accustomed to the break my board style of gameplay and 5 minute cutscene combos. 2017-2018 was a tumultuous time of change and if you weren’t on board with it you quit. 2023 onwards is just that acceptance phase of the 5 stages of grief.
@@connermorgan9223 I loved the MR4 changes back then, I don't know what you mean
@ The concept was a good idea as he pointed out early in the video, but in practice we had a period of tier 0/FTK competitive formats. And it was the Great Leap Forward into the sort of turn 1 hyper combo nonsense that is the present day game, although sure the environment is in a better state than it was in those years.
@@connermorgan9223 no it was not 😂😂. Dude if i broke a board after they spammed the field the game would pretty much always slow down and be in favor of me after punishing them. Now they got 1 card resets.
To me, Link monsters are essentially dumbed down synchro monsters. My issue with the Link mechanic as a whole is not only did it fail in setting out what it was meant to do (slowing down the game), but the loose restrictions combined with their powerful effects turned a gradual extra deck power creep into a massive spike.
Konami never said that was the goal
I have always compared Link monsters to lazy contact fusions. Doesn't need any other card requirement besides the monsters themselves. The only difference is the contact fusion monsters are a little more specific when it comes to materials. Besides that, they both are essentially just send two monsters on the field for an extra deck monster.
@ That’s actually a very good point. I like that comparison
Huh, no wonder I feel weird with Links as a synchro player
And a chunk of contact fusions shuffled the materials back into the deck rather than them ending up in graveyard so the GY wouldn't just instantly flood with tons of monsters. Maybe if some Links did that they wouldn't be the near universal "send on field monsters to the GY to activate their GY effects for a net positive" card pool that they are
I've noticed that whenever decks come out that aren't Link based but fusion, synchro or xyz based they are designed to get around their own summoning rules so they can keep up with Link monsters.
In turn invalidating the point of making them the aforementioned type. Yeah, it's a symptom that won't slow down anytime soon more or less.
To be fair, Fusion and Ritual summoning was bad day 1 and has always been trying to print cards that get around how inherently bad they are.
The fact the field had to be changed and new zones added to accommodate links is more impactful to the game then I ever hear people talking about.
It’s so fun making link plays yourself but it sucks being on the receiving end
Nope. They just suck all around. A synchro climb had flavor. A link climb is lame af
@@Dinkbass A synchro climb's "flavor" is dying to an ash blossom.
Main problem with Links imo is that there isn’t really a downside to playing Links. Unless Links utilises specific attributes of the games restrictions (Link Rating, Co-Linked, Linked, Column, Rows, Zones), I don’t they’ll be fixed. To start off with an idea to fix Links, change their requirements to be a lot more specific and zone/summon heavy.
Is there a downside to playing any summoning mechanic? except maybe Rituals?
@ Fusion: Fusion Spell, though some Decks entirely ignore it.
Synchro: Tuners/Non-Tuners, but Synchro specific decks don’t care.
Xyz: Materials but Xyz Decks generate materials easily.
Pendulums: Their Scales.
Link monsters are always in attack position and can't be in defense. It leaves an opening for battle damage. Sure, there is piercing damage and other forms of effect damage in YGO. However, not every deck runs cards with those effects.
they took level eater away from my synchrons
I’m glad lol
That card is dumb
That card is so stupid
Yes! Yes! Yeeess!
Its not the link monster is the problem, it just that they fasten the game and somehow konami make a long ass combo deck where they forget its actually 2 Players who play the game.
Its already a big warning when during the xyz era, where they started to make OTK become more popular if where you can summon 3 monsters with 2700 in 1 turn and the end result with OTK if there no monster or trap guard your field, you will got otk-ed.
There are other UA-cam video that i found said how yugioh problem is "don't have resources" which is actually not. In before when we play yugioh, because we know the existence of harpie feather duster, heavy storm, raigeki, dark hole, torrential tribute, we try to plan how many set card or summon because we want to have follow up next turn.
Synchro era give a chance to get our mid boss monster come easily and most of populer mid boss monster are have a good defense and protection, and how Stardust Dragon, Starlight Road and My Body as Shield become a game changing.
Xyz era probably become the best part where the speed is really good but not that really broken.
When pendulum come, combo deck become more popular as if you see magician pendulum and entermate where you have to "destroy" in order to search and stack your pendulum card in your extra deck. And some of them become like a meme.
And then before link era, probably Mayakashi is the one the start of "climb" combo deck.
End of pendulum and the start of link era i stopped playing because how the limitation block the way we playing. But i still know the concept of link monster, because i watch VRAINS, and laugh how each player doing solo talk summoning by himself doing a climb combo, which is really stupid at all😂 despite the story, art and mechanism are great.
When master duel come, i come back play and want to see, what change in the game, and suprised how fast the game come and somehow "combo deck" become a meme.
The yugioh i know where you prepare each turn for the next turn already gone, and become the Solitaire game we are know now.
Also they release so many "Omni negate" since Quasar Dragon and somehow all of them are really easy be summoned, its kinda hilarious.
Master Rule 4 together with link monsters really was the single biggest design mistake Konami has ever made with this game. Instead of using the banlist to ban the problem cards they decided to paywall the extra deck behing link monsters, a mechanic that filtered out any deck that could not afford the resources to summon a link monster before going into their own extra deck monsters, which was pretty much every single casual deck. It was supposed to curb the power of pendulums, but pendulums weren't that big of an issue competitively. It's the non-competitive decks that could not keep up with the pendulum summon, so the design of MR4 and link monsters makes no sense in regard to game balancing. All it achieved at that time was killing 95% of the decks.
When it comes to the person responsible of the card design in Japan retiring from their function, I couldn't agree more. For quite a while I have been incredibly frustrated with the cards coming out of the OCG in particular. From their card design, overly relying on going first, and competitive boards overly relying on disruptions to stop the opponent from playing the game. Then there is their unwillingness to use the banlist to ban problem cards and print band-aid fixes instead. They introduce problems, but instead of fixing the problem, they sell you back the solution to that problem, or design archetypes that play around that problem. The most infuriating example can be seen when the TCG exclusives Nibiru, DRNM and Shifter were introduced to the OCG. With Nibiru adding as an additional check to combo decks, instead of banning Maxx C, they designed their combo archetypes to be able to play around Nibiru, and to prevent them from being broken my DRNM, they let them end a trap to stop DRNM, because they already have Maxx C to keep combo decks in check. It has greatly contributed to this game's power creep, and made combo decks absurd for the TCG, with Superheavy Samurai being a notorious example. They can't even design a decent going second deck without having it ignore any interaction from your opponent, I'm of course talking about Tenpai. They should learn to design archetypes that are good going first, but better going second. But most important of all, they REALLY need to use their banlist more aggressively to kill problem cards, including those who cause design issues.
The problem Is: how do you do that? In the deluge of build-a-board negate going first decks or floodgates, how do you make a going second deck good? It either plusses anyway when negated, is an unresponsive mess like tenpai, or has so many one card starters that anything short of 6 negates is confirmed full combo. Handtraps and negates in combination have created this weird meta state where even half built boards still kill you anyway, so it's always all or nothing.
Unless we actually, genuinely, start realizing that generic omni negation should not be printed on anything short of a shooting quasar-like card that requires jumping through several hoops to get to, and start banning A LOT of cards, the problems will always return.
@@starbound100
1: Ban the generic extra deck monsters that needlessly increase the ceiling of combo decks, which the TCG has been doing
2: Make hand traps that only work as disruption for the player that goes second while they control no cards. This prevents them from being additional interruptions for the player that goes first, also reducing the ceiling of the player that goes first.
3: Give archetypes in-archetype hand trap-like monsters that allow the player to set-up turn 1 when they go second. Think the Lab Furtinure or R-ACE Airlifter, but not full combo like Havnis.
4: Give archetype cards bonus effects designed for going second, making it easier for them to play through an established board. Think adding a special summon while your opponent controls a monster, or adding an additional search, or destroying an opponent's card to bait a negate.
5: With point 4 in mind, also have archetypes be able to beat the board they themselves can establish when you design them.
When you apply these 5 changes you should be able to make go second decks viable again, as you are creating archetypes that are not designed purely as a go first or a go second deck, but as decks that are both. That's the main change in core archetype design that this game needs imo.
Thing is; it's been confirmed by an Ex-Konami card designer that both English and Japanese card designers all work on new cards at the same time. As in, even though Japan gets cards first, English designers HELPED create those cards to begin with.
Both teams will sit on video calls and go through mechanics of new cards and new archetypes for months to a year ahead of it's release in Japan and this person had worked on Yugioh up until like... 2016 or something. He has been featured on one of the Yugituber channels ranting modern cards on kf their banned or not. Forgot which one. Will have to dig.
Therefore, the issue isn't Japan and their play style/methods, it's Konami's design philosophy as a whole that's the problem.
Question what are you thought on where pendulums stand in the latter of the game and by pendulums I mean only a singular pendulum archetype that being odd eyes and I don’t wanna here anything about z-arc cause it for one doesn’t have odd eye in it’s name nor do I want to hear anything about arc ray cause that thing barely qualifies for odd eyes support one last bit to you think odd eyes should get it’s gate cards from the anime and a new odd eye link monster pendulink sounds nice and would actually be a good way to deal with the sole banishing problem of odd eyes
@@lorenbrown7100 So you're asking me with a lot of words what I think about Odd-Eyes. I'm not familiar with the Arc-V anime, though Odd-Eyes Pendulum Magicians was my favorite deck during MR3. As for Odd-Eyes itself as a deck, it need way more than just cards from the anime to be good, as it's being held back because it's a pendulum archetype, and pendulum archetypes that rely on the pendulum summon to do anything are just straight up bad under MR5.
What I think about Pendulums in general though? That the mechanic is awful right now. The MR4 restriction on it can easily be reverted with the amount of power creep that has happened since their introduction, save for giving them back their own pendulum zones. It's a 3 card combo mechanic at minimum in a game where 1-2 card combos have become the standard. Games no longer last long enough either for the pendulum summon to matter in a grind game either. The risk vs reward with this mechanic is completely off right now. That said, there is a lot of space for create card design when it comes to pendulum monsters, something Konami tried to tackle with Vaalmonica. In Superheavy Samurai and Melodious we have also seen Konami use pendulum monsters to improve non-pendulum decks with success. There's a lot of design space left with the mechanics, and with a good amount of creativity we can see pendulum archetypes that don't rely on the pendulum summon, or are at risk of becoming part of a pendulum pile.
I rejoined the game during 2018, and to this day I wonder how the hell I’m still here. Between the gumblar loop, trickstar burn, several ftks, and sky striker.
And the center of most of them, link monsters. Now in hindsight links went from a lesser of evil made to slow down the game. To a mechanic that’s so maddeningly hard to balance it eventually revealed itself as a half baked idea it was.
While the link era did give us toss format, and in hindsight I am grateful that it gave us sky striker.
I just wish I didn’t have to experience the piles of BS that came with it.
Atleast you got something pendulum barely got anything per usually you know how bad we got nerfed let’s see we can’t do what our mechanic was intended to do without a link and even still that’s limited every other deck can do what pendulums did in the past with little to no restriction maxxx c is our best friend solely because more cards in hand and scales not to mention as I said every deck just swarms the field with monsters yet he we are unable to do that because one duster and look our scales are gone Konami fix your game and while your at it throw in some love for odd eyes cause arc ray really was not intended in any way for odd eyes also also odd eye gate cards from the anime I need fusion synchro and xyz those boss monster are nearly impossible 1 of them atleast
I’m sorry you missed what came before
Every extra deck mechanic is basically contact fusing with extra steps except for pendulum. That is the only truly unique summing mechanic. Everything else can be explained like a contact fusion just with the materials required being hyper specific case in point like two monsters with the same level or two monsters with a specific level 2. Mi is whose levels is equal, a certain amount and all that can still be worked into Contact fusing. Which is basically what they did.
Instead of riding the claws on the fusion card that you contribute monsters that meet certain conditions to special selling this car from the extra day they just took that clause, made a game mechanic so they didn't have to write it on the card. And then they just gave each card a special material requirements and change the color of the card.
Based take
I dislike them because they took the best of older extra deck mechanics with almost none of the downsides(ex. Synchros are explosive but they need tuners and they can use tokens as materials, xyz are easier to summon but they're not usually as explosive and can't use tokens as materials, links are easier to summon, more explosive than the other two and can even use tokens, dude are you like that little kid who claims he's immortal in the playground so he can win all the time?), making links objectively the best mechanic overall, plus their horrible introduction made more people quit than Chaos format + DAD format combined I would argue.
My hot take
Links were NEVER meant to slow rhe game down, they were meant to take it over the way Pendulums didn't like Synchro or Xyz did before it where they were just the most dominant mechanic during their generation
If their goal was to slow the game down it makes zero sense to print any of them with extension effects they would a barrier that requires you to build into an extra deck summon
And imo Pendulum is the one mechanic that DOESN'T deserve the Link nerf the others just do
link monsters are too easy to summon which is pretty much why I despise them, in my mind extra deck monsters are supposed to require some form of setup to summon, but link just throws that out of the window and ruins half of the game for me, at least fusion is still a good choice
but hey, if you like link monsters, go ahead and have fun. I'm just a person ranting a lil so enjoy yourself with link monsters and keep winning those duels
It's a fallacy to believe that Konami cares about limiting power creep. Power creep is good for business.
Buy new cards
Until it's not good for business. See Ishizu Tear and compare hands snake eyes formats.
I HIGHLY doubt we’ll have a deck stronger than Tear in their full power for the next 5 or so years
They have to control the flow, though.
They have to know when to dripfeed power creep and when to implement "power leap".
you sure cause they sure nerfed pendulums remember when everyone was saying the game is doomed because of them ha as if they weren’t this destructive
I wish all Link monsters were required to use their Link markers in some way to activate their effects instead of just doing whatever they want.
I do agree, thats what made the Knightmares, World Chalice and Tri Gate Wizard more unique than others.
Agreed. It's like if xyz monsters stopped needing overlays
I wish pendulum summoning didn’t require links seriously if every deck nowadays can flood the field might as well remove the nerf from pendulums bring them back to their glory also a odd eyes link card would be nice
They promote efficiency to an almost uncompromising degree due to how flexible they are. At some point you have to argue why link 1s even exist. Today into Fiendsmith requiem, yesterday it was striker dragon.
They just allow decks to be so tight and then people fill up on hand traps making thjngs just feel so cringe.
Decks are tight because of overtuned card design, not links.
@@CyrusIsnt Links ARE overtuned card design.
@@tyranitararmaldo no, they arent
@@SoraBell I really like that about Links. I don't find bricking or inconsistency to be fun. So link monsters being really flexible allows for you to have a gameplan you can execute every game while playing around hand traps.
I like the direction yugioh is going personally.
The problem is that MR4 came out, in which a lot of decks suffered from the link arrow requirement.
Konami then gave a lot of archetypes a broken link monster to remedy the problem.
However, the rule then got reverted in MR 5, allowing those old decks to return at full power. However, all those broken link monsters that were given to the archetypes still exist.
explain how pendulums are broken their practically he most balanced thing in game cause atleast you don’t see us banishing your field while your having your turn or atleast you don’t see us banishing your deck when you active a simple card looking at every meta deck funny how pendulum was considered the worst mechanic now look at it really is the worst mechanic since normal monsters can swarm in full effect meanwhile pendulum got nerf because no reason at all hypocrites I say
("You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind) until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy".
I appreciate that opening Cali 💪🏽
@@PendBestDeck151 don't lecture me Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do
@@alonsoarana5307
I have brought peace, justice, and security to my new empire
I like this style of deep dive video 🤘 cool learning about the metas that have come before!
i can confirm that myself, i was enjoying the zoodiac format while playing galaxy-eyes but the moment i saw the master rule changes and how they force every deck to play links i just quit the game for years until mr5 came out
As someone who's first deck is Salamangreat cuz of Soulburner revive my awkward anime crush (My first yugioh anime is Vrains) despite the problem of the mechanic it still my favorite summoning mechanic, something about them that make it feels like a guilty pleasure, i can see the reasonable amount of hatred but i will always defende my Salamangreat.
I dislike the how generic many of the link monsters are and I hate that engine requirements were moved into the extra deck. These two changes have removed risks from deck building and removed the toolbox utility found in the extra decks of older formats.
@@Knightmare0259 You have the Knightmares and more recently SP little Knight and decks still play Accesscode Talker. Id say that Links have that Toolbox property.
Plus decks like snake still have to play engine bricks like ogre and flamberg.
Truly informing, this style of video is beyond helpful for new or returning players like myself from back before when it was just called a fusion deck. Getting into it now and even getting my friend to get back into is sometimes difficult because of all the mechanics added. Love this style of video Cali keep up the good work big dawg
Glad you're enjoying the content! 🙏
I'll take Links any day over Pendulums.
Pendulums are another card game trying to sneak into Yugioh.
Never forget UFO Turtle
cuz link monster suck.
Amen
@@zikra5901 cope.
Why?
Wdym link monsters suck they are extremely splashable, they are simple to summon provided you are only using a few, and playable strategies come about about as often as fusion synchros, or xyz ones do, so explain to me why it is you think link monsters suck
I like em. I never played Yugioh pre-link and honestly retro formats that dont have them don't appeal to me.
Since it was brought up, I’d love to see a video about old school yugioh.
I don’t hate link monsters I quite like them actually i like the way they play but probably because I play G Golem
Merry Christmas Cali !!!!!
Would love to hear about your take on old formats.
Merry Christmas big dawg
I see that they took the idealogy of "if everything is overpowered, nothing is overpowered"
I actually like Links, I came back into the game right as Links were debuting in Yugioh. Links became absolutely busted within a year. I almost quit in 2018 because of the FTK and then took a small break in 2019. Links did the opposite. Konami was hoping it would dom
At the risk of sounding selfish, the introduction of link monsters alone killed my favorite deck of all time, dark synchro. I was finally able to play at a moderately high level and was having fun doing so. That was peak yugioh for me. Nothing about the game has been even half as exciting as my dark synchro days. Links really killed the vibe for me. Even tearzero format didn't feel as bad (but it came close) because I had already experienced the darkest timeline possible in yugioh. Screw 2018 yugioh..
Love this vid. Great way to sum up Konami's mistakes and address what needs to change about card/mechanic design in the future.
I’m glad that they introduced links to the game. It allowed for me to be able to play my baby, salamangreat. The only deck I still play to this day.
This was an excellent video. Loved the music and the topic. Left me wanting more
Synchro was my favorite summon mechanic before link came out, i think they're really fun, i mostly play Dragon-link and Salamangreat.
TheCaliEffect ASMR is something i didnt know i needed but im now here for
I love these videos of yours that go over the history of yugioh. Although I watched a bit of the show growing up, I didn’t get into the game until I was an adult. Thanks Cali :)
The second you said TOSS format a tear came to my eye. That was probably one of the best formats I have ever played in the game and look at it for the standard modern yugioh should be played like but probably won’t happen again.
don't hate them now. Just hate how underused the arrows are.
Funny enough I actually quit playing Yu-Gi-Oh when i heard you can only special summon monster from the extra deck by linking it. I some how knew that the game was taking the wrong turn, and the old Yu-Gi-Oh that I know and love was dead.
Same!
You played through pendulums bro
I feel as though Links are somewhat unbalanced in the sense that they don’t typically require specific materials like Synchros or XYZ which makes link climbing much more spam-able. They usually don’t need an extra card or effects like fusions to be summoned, either.
If the monsters were far more restricted and locked you from doing stuff for example, I feel as though the mechanic would be much more balanced. Make them only usable in-archetype, but very powerful within. HERO is a good example of this. That is just my opinion, however.
( RDA BEST DECK!!!! )
tbf that was sorta the point of links; that they didnt require specific materials but they definitely should require at least adjacent specific stuff like at least 1 monster belonging to the specific archetype or has a similar trait as that of monsters in the archetype which is something more commonly seen in newer link monsters instead of simply being “effect monster” the majority of the time
if not making the requirements more restrictive then at least the effects should be similar to how some rank up xyz works where some or all effects is locked unless they were made using specific materials like there would be less complaint about something like accesscode if at least 1 of its effects was locked behind needing to summon it using another code talker for example
love the new style of content keep it up brodie🤙👍👍
A combination of:
- Konami twisting players arms to play them at the start with Master Rule 4.
- Being so jokingly easy to summon that they almost invalidate the older summoning mechanics anyway.
- Having a horrible trend of being horrifically overpowered which continues to this day (just check the banlist and count the number of Links compared to any other extra deck cards)
does not breed a positive relationship with the playerbase.
Absolutely great video my guy!!!! Awesome job. Thanks. Super informative, and super awesome
could you make a video on why zoodiac was so powerful i hear horror stories about it but i wasnt playing competitvly at it's peak and dont know why it was so strong
Happy holidays Cali! It sounds like you have a sore throat, hope you get well soon!
So many cards for synchros had to be banned bc of links… worst mechanic ever. MR5 was a step in the right direction but the game should do a hard reset and ban the entire link mechanic
I hated that Konami made a master rule where you are coerced into playing link monsters. Plus for budget players extra deck means extra money. Gone where days where playing with an extra deck was optional. Now playing with a extra full of staples is a must
I’ve been getting back into Yu Gi oh & all these links synchro summons have been tough on me. I don’t know how to do it. Is there anyway you can make a video of creating a powerful but easy deck that can take on synchro & links please
I like links cool design and gameplay elements. I would like more co linked or linked effects.
My two problems with the summoning type is that cyberse Monsters do nothing but link spam to create stupidly op boards and any new or non cyberse link monsters are made way to generically to be fair to other extra deck strategies
Konami also needs to understand the more cards get banned, the more players will indicate that buying cards becomes more pointless in the long-term.
Granted, binders will stack ...but then what, 20 years to play a card finally un-banned?
I'm a dedicated fan holding onto my favorite cards and I'm crazed for the new Cyberdark support rn along w/ other sick cards, and i actually like links so long as they fit the deck players like, but some meta plays are obsessive making it harder to authenticate without hyper technicalities...
It's bittersweet, but i love the game.
As a new player the thing that stands out to me, is that you basically can’t build an extra deck without a couple of the stronger generic monsters generic Link monsters. I think that’s what a lot of players hate. A couple of slots in your deck simply have to go to SP Little Knight, IP Masquerena, etc. A lot of players don’t like auto-include cards because they limit deckbuilding options.
I think complaining about auto include cards can be a bit silly since every card game has really strong cards that you have no reason not to play.
Link monsters are too generic and acts just like contact fusion.
Who cares you boomers have been saying this since synchro monsters get over it. Nobody wants to run whatever jank decks y’all think are fair and good most of them suck
No offense, but normal summoning 1 monster and setting a couple back rows is just too slow.
@@Toadflax6869 don’t forget back then they had some of the most broken spells and traps available most of them just didn’t read them till the “pro” players did. Catapult turtle ftk and hand ripping for 4-5 wasn’t that hard.
@@Toadflax6869where is it that this person is even saying this?
@@Robbie-o3ewhere are they making that claim? You're shadow boxing.
Love the videos. I play YGOpro when not religiously working on music.
My favorite decks have always been the generic waifu decks
However my most proud deck was an Odd Eyes Rocket link deck BEFORE dragon link was a thing. When dragon link became meta I just went back to the waifu archetypes as I felt personally insulted by Konami for even attempting to be relatively creative
Ive jumped from yugioh to pokemon, but i still love watching your content Cali!
I dont hate link monsters. I hate how komoney handled link monsters. Especially the first year of link monsters. Not everyone got a link monster, the change to the mechanic which they had to revise (fixed it but not much) and, let's be honest the first wave as a result of we didn't want the issues we cause (synchos).
@HarpiePlayerJoeHPJ I never played back then, so i cant say much about the release of links besides what ive heard, but I really like the state of the game currently except for cards like Shifter and Droll. I'm not a fan of blanket floodgate effects that shut off an entire mechanic of the game. If they removed that the game would be peak.
I love links but I don’t like what they’ve become. My fav deck of all time is Tri brigade. Banishing from grave to link is such a cool mechanic
Honestly 😂 when links were first introduced to the game, I had recently come back to Yu-Gi-Oh! I thought it was gonna be something amazing something that would limit us players and give newer players a chance. We. Were. Wrong. 😂
aaah yes. i still remember those good old days of double helix dropping, heralding a new true tier 0.
Lots of link based decks are cool and fun.
But damn they sure were the enabler for ”Modern Yugioh” where a card like Raigeki can’t find Main Deck play as I need my 1 body to turn into 4-6 disruptions + followup and then 3 hand traps in hand to make sure my opponent will never stick a card.
But Striker, Orcust and Salamangreat were peak YGO as you got to do flashy combos, back and forth games and 1 card in all of those decks would give you… 1 negate/send and grind game!
Want a bigger board? More engine!
Branded Swordsoul era wasn’t too bad either, unless they protos’d you out of the game… The boards were easy enough to play into! And neither had 15min combos (At that point.)
the link mechanic seems cute on first glance.. they have arrows that point to where you can summon more, they only have an ATK stat.
but the more it unravels..
- link climbing is too easy
- tokens are now unbalanced
- way too easy to just dump cards to get their GY effects
Electumite and skull dread came out in Extreme Force
PLease make a series of video on how old YGO was played, but make it very personal
Yh as someone that only got back into the game in 2021 it'd be great to see a video about cards and decks that caused real issues for players back then - I'm a big history mut tbf about all things including YU-GI-OH
Yo who is the thumbnail artist though???
Konami’s so concerned about making Pendulum Monsters too powerful, meanwhile Link Monsters are overpowered by design. However, there are Link-based strategies that are balanced, such as @Ignister.
You should go back down memory lane with all the older formats and discuss the decks that ran rampant in them
It's the easiest to make with good effects without changing youre deck two much or not at all. They have become a must for alot of Decks or we wish links for our favorite Decks. So it's a love and hate
At this point forget the banlist, Pendulums are going to pop up on the Most Wanted list after they go out for milk.
If the link monsters and cards released during link era focused more on zone it points to or other certain zones, then it would be much more funny and less power crept
Oh well, let's hope next master rule mechanic isn't as silly
I don’t hate Link Monsters entirely but I have a couple gripes with it (my apologies I am a normie duelist who plays Master Duel)
1: The fact that any archetype that tends to struggle with its gameplan gets a link monster as a sort of fix. Example: Why do I need to play Wise Strix in Raidraptor? The deck that focuses on xyz and rank-ups?
2: And this is mostly from my Master Duel experience, I dislike some link monsters that enable things that I just don’t like. Primarily cards like saryuja skull dread in Six Samurai and especially Verte Anaconda spitting out DPE and now currently Dragoon. As if meta decks weren’t strong enough as is now I gotta deal with those too💀.
What I hate the most is giving non link decks like a fusion or xyz based deck a link monster as support.
link monsters is the best way
Great if you like solitaire. Bad if it's your opponent and you wanna play Yu-Gi-Oh. But there's solitaire decks in all extra deck mechanics i feel.
Also, FTR, I'm a degenerate and I love Link monsters. Yeah, some are obnoxious and suck and make not fun game states, but others are really great and make old decks more playable. So That's neat.
Eh. I play some pretty high level yugioh and solitaire was never an actual thing outside ACTUAL tier 0 formats (not the ones where the top decks are pretty good and not absolutely broken like SPYral).
Neither Links, nor pendulums should have even happened. They should have had the balls to make THOSE mechanics into their own game, like rush, instead of dragging the entire brand down out of fear. They KNEW it wouldn't be received well.
Me: Come on 2017 wasn't "Old scool" Yu-gi-ho
Me realising 2017 was 8 years ago : X_X
🤣🤣
This video feels as though the history of link monsters.
what are you talking about links were the best thing since fusions i love seeing those syncor xyz dogs squirm but not by equally dumb pendelums
Link is trash
And they deserve more. Everything people hate on pendulums for were actually the problem links introduced. +90% of ftks and t0 formats the game had ever seen happened during the mr4 to mr2020 period while pendulums were always a nonfactor in the competitive scene.
I love link monsters especially tri heart but yeah, got so broken overtime and splashble broken links like halqifibrix and auroradon
On a sidenote, if you want to Collab together on a Yu-Gi-Oh! history video, I have a whole playlist of retro formats going in depth as a retrospective series on my channel!
You should make a video on the best yugioh era as far as cards and play. My opinion was 5D’s w/ synchro at the time the only other xtra deck monster was fusion to summon synchro was a set up there was strategy to Summon it and I think the game was the most balance at the time. I feel like any archetype was capable of beating top tier decks at the time and decks were more unique not like nowadays where everyone have the same staples I.e hand effects. But it just my opinion
Werent cards like effect veiler and Goyo Guardian must play staples in the synchro era?
I hate xyz more than any other mechanic. The only thing I can hate about link monsters is how it hurts pendulums. Especially since pendulums doesn't deserve any of the hate it gets
I quit the game during the goki hand loop format and never came back
Watching these videos make me thankful I didn't. The games also so expensive compared to other card games that you can play multiple meta decks in other games for the price of a playset of one staple secret rare. 😩
To be honest, I miss pendulum monsters. Link monsters are pain in the arse as they are far too easy to use and too easy to get out. They allow you to play through too much stuff. It should have ended at a retrain or mechanic change to ritual monsters.
Name of the music?
My biggest problem is that cards like SP Little Knight are in every single decklist I see. Personally I’ve always thought that card should be banned for that reason. Force people to get more creative.
Yugioh has always had staple cards you play in every deck since the games creation.
@@Godzillagamr999Sure but I was speaking strictly from a Link monster standpoint.
@@marny129 I see. I dont really see an issue with a staple link monster personally.
Its both an abused system as well as a boring system... very bad combination for sure...
Link monsters wouldve been a fantastic mechanic if they didnt make them a generic mess that was used to just powercreep everything to the moon and semi-obligatory for the longest time.
Accesscode is cool until every deck plays it and plays it easily
I ignore they exist, also pendulums but Konami also forgot they exist
Why do I feel like I'm about to give my life to Jebus?
Master rule 4 was awesome
To those saying links were supposed to slow down the game, that was never the intended purpose. The link arrow restriction was not there to slow down the game, it was there to force people into buying link monsters.
It was both
I’ve played since 2007, and I’ll tell you the root problem.
If you go back to 3:00 to 3:19 this is EXACTLY the problem. Pendulum..
Link summoning was created to bandage the pendulum issue. This is why so many yugioh players left the scene! Konami simply should have never created pendulum because then link summoning would’ve never been a thing, as link summoning was the solution for pendulum.
IMO, they should have kept it at xyz and synchros and just balanced the game out without power creep……
Not to mention, now you have decks than can ftk via link monsters 🤦♂️!
Besides, reading a lot of these comments I can clearly see that a lot of ppl who supported link summoning are more recent players…. (Meaning started playing 2015+) that says a lot about the state of the game. Where did all the original yugioh players go? I wonder… lmfao..
You can't NOT have power creep. Even Pokemon TCG has power creep and it has set rotation.