I'm Quitting Paper Yu-Gi-Oh! (Until Konami Meaningfully Changes Sets)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- It's been an honor to be Giant Skyhawk! Maybe I will see you all again if things meaningfully change, but I think there's a high chance that this is the end for me. I've never had more fun than making people laugh with unique cards or decks, and getting to have a flash of competitive success doing that was incredible. I hope I've been able to have an impact in some small way, but I can't continue to be a part of an ecosystem like this. I would encourage you all to also stop buying in to the paper game until things change if you can.
Thank you all for everything!
The rarity collection showed that the ocg distribution model works. That set sold like hot cakes.
Meanwhile OCG is starting to centralize around Sinful Spoils decks which can play Bonfire. Lo and behold, they made it a $70+ card in TCG. People not being able to afford FIRE support cards will surely make the format stay diverse!!! (Konami, probably)
Rarity Collection is not a normal OCG set. Even people in the OCG call Rarity Collection one of the wildest sets ever printed.
I am referring to the set we got. Cards printed in multiple rarities. This is the norm in ocg sets. The idea that the only way to move product is by making the good cards hard to pull so people have to open a ton of packs is an outdated business model. If wanted was printed in super, ultra and secret it would not be a $120 card
The rarity collection killed off the secondary market thoo. They sold a lot on the short term but criticaly damaged the collectors demographic, and most people here in the west don' t really have a collectors mindset like with pokemon or MTG because of a variety of reasons.
The issue is:
-Card get printed in a lot of rarities, shops gain from individual product but everything else fails, players are happy but shop loses money
-Card get printed in less rarities, shops gain from the product being sold more for chase card, players are unhappy because of rarities being bullshit.
There' s nothing you can do here unless radicaly modifying the game at its core, but at that point, it' s not really the yugioh landscape anymore, and you risk alienating everyone.
If the price of the diabellstar engine were even $100 instead of $500 i don't see how that isn't good for the game. Sorry but you are never going to convince me that these predatory practices konami does are actually good for the game.
Konami would sooner abandon the game than fix it. All that matters are quarterly earnings. "Will this be good for our bottom line over the next 3 months?" That's the first and last question when it comes to the game's development.
Because the game isn't the problem. You players are. 😅😅😅😅 and they have no problem not making this game for Y'all. 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
@@CardGamesTV1 how exactly are the players the problem?
@Binzob you just proved my point. The fact you're asking instead of knowing they are the real problems in this community. Shows you are part of the problem. And you blame konami for what players choose to do. Smh. No accountability
@@CardGamesTV1 ah the classic don't actually answer the question.
@SpectreShadow13 The community can be shit but this video was about was the problems with the game, which are either not at all or minimally influenced by the players. Also not really sure how autistic people ruin the community?
played since high school (2014) and quit towards the end of TOSS format. i just started playing again casually with friends and though the time was short im glad i found your channel (also canadian in GTA). my breaking point was i wanted to play plunder patrol and the only viable way to play my favourite deck at the time was with a playset of droplets ($140 at the time) and the adventure package around $320, i was not going to spend $700+ to play barely tier 2 strategy. Add in apollousa was still over $100 at the time. i had done this song and dance several times with phantasmay, ash blossom, extravagance and borreload savage dragon being so well out of reach for most of the initial printing.
i opened a mega tin and though "wtf am i doing..." i cant get excited for new sets because theres always some $80+ card/engine that i cant afford. i wait all year for staples to be reprinted and when they are they are no longer relevant. theres always a threat that even cheap/rouge archetypes will have expensive starters or searcher cards because of the poor rarity distribution especially when they did short prints. and if I do wait im getting a deck/staple long after its competitively viable or its lost all its key cards to the ban list, i got some zoodiac stuff from a mega tin once and they got banned a month after. It feels like a 2 tiered game, those who can pay to play eat good, they get to play these decks at full power for the longest duration and those who can't play a weaker gimped version. right now im playing swordsoul, a deck i click with 100% because they are just better yangzing (my all time favourite). if i was playing when they initially came out i know i wouldnt be able to afford expensive starters, search spell or extra deck boss monsters like baron let alone hand traps and side deck.
i dont want to play a TCG were i cant be excited for anything and im just waiting for off meta scraps to play with. i started playing vanguard and i havent looked back. when you leave yugioh you realise theres no other game that plays like yugioh. but you will learn to find that itch in the board planning of shadowverse or the resource managment in games like digimon and vanguard. i wish you the best of luck and to not look back. Yugioh is one of the big 3 and the players are stuck on the plantation and wont leave or demand better, they simply will just buy over priced tier 2 decks like vanquish soul anyways. i might look into rush duel if we ever get it here but outside of playing with my friend i have no desire or real interest in ygo. If you're anything like me my advice is to leave
Brutally honest video, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for you for making your choice and raising your voice about it. I really hope that Konami sees this, but also realises that you aren't the only one to feel this way.
Opening packs has long been something I enjoyed, but I can't justify spending the money on sealed product. Rarity Collection was the most fun I've had opening packs in YEARS. But one enjoyable set doesn't fix the fundamental problems if the two sets that follow it just revert back to form.
I like to play competitive level games. I like to play new and interesting decks. But S:P Little Knight is a pipedream for me to pick up right now. Let alone a deck that works best with the Diabellestar engine because of the artificially inflated prices. My non-OTS locals is super casual and we have some younger players (under 16) there. I have a full time job and can't justify spending the amount that people are spending on these cards so I feel extremely bad for the younger players who want to get a bit more competitive with the game.
I sincerely hope that Konami sees how well the Rarity Collection was received compared to pretty much every other product and see that the OCG distribution model is what made it such a success.
Hope you stay safe, happy, and healthy while you're away from the game however long that may be.
The company could be going under, and they would still not change because of how much money they would lose if they did.
Wasn't everyone just in a pickle about how product isn't selling? Do you have any idea how much AGOV sold? Their rarity gouging is a direct response to stores losing money on Yugioh product. There is no in between here, either Yugioh sets are cheap as hell and stores lose or they have high rarities for good cards, stores win and players lose. If everyone complains about the high rarities then its just going to go right back to the issue we were just having with stores not selling product lol Because why buy product when all the cards in need are are low rarity? (Cyberstorm Access)
Rarity Collection also does not seem like a good counter-argument because that set sacrificed 90% of good cards values to be that good. They have to build up cards in need to do something like that again. I wish there was a way to satisfy everyone but I don't see it.
@@yoastertoaster8306 the middle ground is the real OCG model. Rarity Collection is slightly off model for even the OCG. You can have cards in multiple rarities but not every rarity.
Take Spright Blue for example. In OCG it came out in Super Rare, Secret and Prismatic. Players could get affordable copies and the whales got get their extra shiny stuff. It reduces the nerd for reprint sets and gives more time between product releases. There's so much product in a short space of time, it's fatiguing financially for players let alone stores.
@@yoastertoaster8306Alright, here are some examples of games I know that do a similar "every card has a low rarity" practice. Please tell me if you can find any substantial data that suggests local card shops lose money consistently with them. Pokemon, Weiss Schwarz, and the fucking OCG.
I think Weiss and Pokemon alone show that a card game can have fairly cheap decks with cheap cards and super high rarity cards to chase and still be successful. Things like full arts, Gold Stamps, etc. give the whales something to hunt and keep a local store happy. But players themselves also benefit from lower prices, and the local stores can host bigger and better events too.
If anyone can find a way to keep the game accessible and profitable, it's Konami. There's enough brilliant people at the company to figure it out.
@yoastertoaster8306 yes but when a set has 3 maybe 4 good cards in a set that is underwhelming it dosent fix the problem people aren't going to buy boxes of a set where your looking for a card that you only get 3 ultras of per box out of 11 from the set the Current ratios mean that if you buy a case of a set any higher rarity stuff you barely are able to get a player of when they did this with dragoon, crossout, and then last 2 deck builder set printed the best decks which are tier 2 at these all rare side sets have a horrific pull rate which make players stay well clear of the boxes and only buy the singles which cause sets aren't being open less stock is available making everything go up
We'll miss you dude. I'll do my best to hold down the fort for you while you're away. You're completely right, set ratios and set design are unethical and it needs to change, and stuff like this is the only way its gonna happen.
i opend god knows how many tins at this point. The only Bystial card i pulled so far is lubellion. I thought a gigantic reprint set with 300+ cards, tripple the size of a main set, wasnt going to have "extrem" short prints. Konami proved me wrong.
😅😅😅😅 he's a nobody
No we won't
Man this is so well said. Didn't even notice but I haven't been to locals in close to 2 months bc I'm just not enjoying the game and I don't feel like being in this rat race of spending 300-500 for new cardboard.
You never need to. To play the game. And to sin. You just suck at the game. So you buy cards to compensate for your lack of skill. 😅
In high school we just printed all the cards we wanted on uniform pieces of paper and put them in card sleeves why can’t people do that to circumvent paying thousands?
@deathmetalcakefarts2751 facts. Especially if you are playing for fun. And not a tournament
Wish I could activate Necrofusion and bring skyhawk back from retirement
You'll be missed man. I've only started listening to the Top Cut Podcast for the last few months or so and it's always been a pleasure to hear your voice and attitude towards the game. Sure, jank might not perform as well as tier 1 or higher but the fact that you can build jank decks is part of what makes the game so appealing. Sorry to hear your resolution with yourself and I wish you the best even if we don't see you as Giant Skyhawk again.
All I can say is what took you so long? The end of an Era is always sad, but Konami is so exploitative to their TCG consumers I fully encourage this change and whatever your next step is. Godspeed friend.
Good video king. Keep preaching. Unfortunately komoney probably won’t make any changes. Gonna miss u.
Will still be one of the dino dinguses forever
I went into your video, pressed play, saw your face and instantly clicked like. Because I know that face, I had the exact same realisation in 2010 when I quit playing Yugioh. Even if the game was very different back then, the way Konami handles the game and how it pits its monetization against the player is very much the same trend. Even if it's sad to "quit" a game, I actually am glad to find this video, because it affirms to me that it's moreso Konami quitting you, I or any reasonable player and the awesome community yugioh is outside of the actual game.
The difference between how cards are distributed OCG/Asia distribute sets and cards vs how cards are distributed in the TCG/everywhere else, is borderline discriminatory. In the OCG every card has the same ratio of being found at the rarities they're available at and no one rarity has a smaller chance of appearing than another (you are just as likely to pull a OCG Ultimate Rare as you are a Common).
Compared to the TCG where you have to deal with Short Printing, Rarity unequality (and rarity bumps of 'meta' cards) and cards in the original set being changed out for less valuable cards (see: Cyber Slash Harpie Lady a card that's at least $17 on TCG Player that was reprinted in the OCG Valient Smashers, being swapped out for Angel of Zera a card that can be bough for a single cent on TCG player, in the TCG Valient Smashers).
The concept of a card costing more than $5 in the OCG is ludicrous. In the TCG certain cards (like the upcoming 'Bonfire' from Maze of Millennia) are being sold for as high as $130. It's ridiculous. It's not ok. At the very least in Master Duel, everyone is in the same boat when it comes to how they get cards.
I will copy an answer from a reddit thread, and I will link the source in case at the end of the answer, to explain why Konami can' t really change how they operate:
The OCG is a wildly different market. It might as well be a different planet. There are a lot more casual players in JP who buy product there in part because YGO is a cultural phenomenon for them in the same manner that Pokemon is worldwide. YGO does not and has never had that sort of cultural reach in the west. The amount of money that can be made appealing to casual players and collectors in OCG is enough to actually support a product line for YGO there, something that isn't true in the West, where our competitively irrelevant sets like DUNE just bomb.
Japan also has a significantly higher number of card shops per square mile. If you've ever visited there, you will noticed that there are dozens of them in every major city, compared to maybe 2-4 in comparable cities in the US. In Japan there are mixed zoning laws that allow people to open businesses in residential areas without a ton of paperwork, so you'll see many of these smaller card shops on the first floor of people's residences everywhere. This combined with the better public transit system makes it both easier for people to get into card games on a casual level, and for card shops to stay in business on lower margins.
In the US this doesn't happen. LGSs are nearly always on dedicated commercial plots and that means monthly rent, utilities, and salaries for employees to man the place. The need for cash flow is greater, the rent isn't gong to pay itself. And for YGO specifically, the casuals and collectors DO NOT RELIABLY BUY MODERN SEALED PRODUCT.
The only buyer demographic that actually pays the bills has been the competitive players, and historically that demographic has only cared about the lowest price copy of a card. A tiered rarity system isn't exactly going to make more money from them, and if anything it'll probably actually make less. A tiered rarity system would only work if there is a significant collector demographic chasing those higher rarity versions, and that demographic doesn't really exist in the TCG. In part because Konami can't be trusted to not screw them by double dipping on those cards with reprints. The Rarity Collection reprinted of a ton of existing Collector Rares this year and wiped out anybody who got the original versions of those cards. The collectors that actually spend enough money to be worth trying to appeal to aren't spending that money on modern sealed product, they're spending on that money chasing after actually rare cards on ebay or facebook.
So I don't know how much of this still applies to Europe, but for the US the TL;DR
-Japanese zoning laws makes opening card shops much easier and cheaper as it allows people to open them in residential areas, meaning margins can be lower.
-Ease of access to card shops due to their density, location, and better public transit means both a wider casual audience for card games in general, as well as intense competition between games for that casual audience which is likely to be more price sensitive than a competitive crowd.
-YGO is much more culturally relevant in the JP market, meaning there are a lot more people who will open product for non competitive cards.
-YGO in the west is not culturally relevant enough to be able to survive off casual buyers like Pokemon can, and has reprint tendencies that effectively punish collectors for opening modern products.
-The LGS commercial model at least in the US is very expensive to maintain due to the restrictions to using commercial land plots, high rental costs due to the square footage needed for play spaces, and the need for more employees since you can't run it out of the first floor of your residence. If a game cannot make enough money to be worth the shelf space, it will be dropped.
-Being a casual player in the NA region is much less common due to significantly lower density of card stores and poor public transit, meaning longer travel distances which will deter many people.
So higher operating costs and a smaller buyer base that has a higher % of competitive players that both can pay more *and* largely does not care what a card looks like, only that it's the cheapest version. Thus, rarity bumping is a natural consequence.
www.reddit.com/r/yugioh/comments/192ie8e/ocg_vs_tcg/kh33ce2/?context=3
Would mention that cyber slash lady gets reprint in battle of legends chapter 1, so it is not that bad. A for the OCG argument, sometimes i just want to drop tcg and play in japanese, don't even care about maxx c at this point, just make my deck for cheap. (even for out of meta decks it can get pricey depending on how you look at it, especially when they are from old sets)
The idea that "we must exploit tcg players" is a wild one to defend
Pretty sure if they can, they did something to the north American Master Duel servers. Asian players got 50 free packs on launch.
@@laforestadeimillepugnali3865 Ehy its my tread! 😂🎉
Join the club bud! Gotta love how they reprinted Rescue Ace just to push all the ridiculously expensive stuff from AGOV. But hey, at least if you wanna still play a card game, Pokemon TCG is pretty darn cheap for minimum rarity. I've gotten to the same point too both because of price and because my closest local events are like 45 minutes away. I'd much rather sit at home playing Duel Links, Master Duel, or other games. Hope you at least stick around the community though.
Just heard about this; sad to see yugioh lose one if its most creatively brilliant players. If things don't change in this game, I'm sure you'll do as well in the next thing and maybe even enjoy it more. Hope you continue posting updates here.
I just found this video through my recommendations and I agree with everything you said. The game has consistently unreasonably expensive and it's gotten to a point where its not fun to play advanced format. Nowadays I mostly just play retro formats with friends and picked up the shadowverse tcg for locals. But you're absolutely right, there is no other game like yugioh and its a shame that this game just had to fall under konami
Thank you for getting me into Fluffals and Dinos Hawkman. If there ever is a future where you return to the tcg, then we will know that future is shining with good changes that support the player base, the future of yugioh will look brighter. Live strong mate!
Tried telling people that paper yugioh was dying and they got really mad at me. Think it's that sunken cost fallacy
You have summarized every gripe I have with this game in one video.
This is the first video of yours I have seen and I’ve got to say that everything you said is facts. I’ve been thinking about taking a break or quitting myself, especially with this last year of yugioh.
Too expensive
Banlists are bad/unfair for the most part
Decks aren’t fun
And I feel like Konami puts in minimum effort
Hey! I saw you commented “Dino DNA” on my regional top with dino’s in May of 23! I just wanted to say I agree with your sentiment completely, and I hope to see you back in the scene soon if things change. 🦖🦕
Can't agree enough, I feel the same but I will just not travel to events and play locals, they're still fun to me cause of the friends I have there and it's something to take my mind off of things
I only play MD, and only F2P. I like the game a lot but I'm with you, the game is simply not affordable and every time there is a competitive budget friendly deck, Konami makes sure it gets hit in the banlist even if it's not dominant. Rarity Collection was a rare step in the right direction but only one product of that quality in a whole year is just not enough.
Maybe not super interactive, but pokemons turns are super involved. And skill does alot in the game. Also TOP 8 in Regionals usually have like 7 different deck types represented, many Top players constantly getting there, not because they can afford cards others cant but because of their skills in decision making, weighing odds and matchup knowledge.
I'm with you 100% it's why I quit playing in 2022 after only a few years back in the game because of the power creep and how expensive it is
i agree with everything you say, and my conclusion for me at least, was to just build budget decks that are competitively viable enough to top locals, and keep up with the meta-game enough to compete, but not enough to top a regional or ycs. That way i can avoid buying expensive meta warping cards, but still play the game and enjoy it, albiet at a strong disadvantage from not having the full sinful spoils package, s:p, every meta staple
the problem is that in any case if you work and have the possibility of 100/200 euros worth of cards a month you can also afford them, but if these "necessary cards" come out constantly and every month the situation becomes difficult and above all stressful, people already have a shitty life, he can also avoid getting bitter over a card game haha
Thank you for everything Skyhawk! There will always be a home for you in the NFE Discord! Please let me know if you need anything or want to fully quit the NFE discord, much love ~Outback
WOW now that's a username i've seen a while ago, i used to be a french 3 axis degenerate if you Can remember ;)
BASED DEKATRON@@ManhwaResumes
Digimon is really good, cheap, fun.
It might be tough to find a locals that actually has players, but I started playing Digimon in 2023 basically a full year ago and I love it. It's very skill based, cheap.
I agree with every point in this video. It's full of the reasons I don't play competitive yugioh.
Yeah bringing the OCG model to TCG as a standard will be great, i think lesser sets per year and rarity collection model would work because will less sets people would buy more sealed product and we still will have the expensive versions of cards but with the option to have more affordable copies for playing, but Konami won't listen.
100% with you there, but I can't state how much I hate that YGO has reached this point. Looking forward to your content regardless, and I hope you'll give other card games a try (MtG has a bunch of dinosaurs wink wink)
One Piece has hot girls and cool dudes that transform into dinosaurs.
MtG player here and I'd argue hasbro is worse than Konami in terms on monetization. One piece, Digimon, and pokemon are much better
Flesh and Blood is pretty fun 😉
Mekklord! Hail to you duel links guru
@@deltagodangelanother MTG player here and I agree. Don't get into Magic competitively, even on Arena. You'll be spending similar prices to YGO consistently.
I’ll miss you and your videos dude! Hopefully you’ll come back at some point, but as a player that’s played on and off since the start of the game, I completely understand. Not gonna lie, one of my favourite moments in this game was meeting you at YCS Vancouver and getting you to sign my marshmallon. You’re a great guy Isaac. Until next time, Skyhawk.
As long as there are compslaves willing to drop big bucks on new meta cards, this ain't going to change and Konami wants money so of course they will pander to paying customers or keep doing what they've been doing for 25 years.
Btw no LGS runs Yugioh anymore in my city and around it. Everyone just runs Pokemon.
The double standard from you is crazy ngl. I complain about card prices you call it poor teenager problems and yet when some youtuber does it you immediately agree with him. That's crazy but hey glad you agree that card prices are actually a problem after all.
@@Honest_Mids_Masher No, it just means you posses no reading comprehension and are most probably too young or genuinely have asd.
Please don't interact with me for your own good.
Gonna miss you on the pod. I can't see anything changing. Maxx c is most definitely staying and i can only see card prices getting crazier. We love you buddy
The practices of the TCG are just awful. I quit playing over a decade ago as a casual player / broke college kid. Now I have a job and money, and got into the game back via master duel.
I thought it might be fun to buy some sealed product for the memories / collection purposes, but how could you when 60-80 gets you only 2 secret rares in a set? That’s such an awful value proposition. If they even guaranteed you just one of each secret from a set, they probably would be getting 60-80*3 for me for each set. Instead, I don’t buy anything.
It’s crazy what people are willing to buy.
Thanks for the content Giant Sky Hawk! We’ll miss you
Honestly in December I wanted to start a new hobby and get into a TCG. The options i was interested in just because of nostalgia reasons were YGO and Pokemon. After I looked at some deck price comparisons, I immediately went "well, that's an easy decision", walked into my nearest card store and got a (nearly) competitive Pokemon league battle deck for 30 Euros. I bought a few singles to improve it and now i spent like 70 bucks on a deck I can do well at locals with. + Most of those cards appear in EVERY competitive deck, so switching to a different one wouldn't be too bad.
The thing is, what people don't really seem to understand, you don't really need to quit or even spend money on the game to have an impact on the industry.
Just only buy products you feel are worth it.
If you do like productdesigns like the rarity collection, make sure that THIS is the product you spend your money on.
If Konami sees that productdesigns like those make way more money, they are going to focus on it by nature.
This means you don't have to completely boycott yugioh products alltogether.
Not buying products that aren't worth it is essentially boycotting Konami.
It genuinely sucks that the game is so expensive while the format is so diverse. I own the Sinful Spoil stuff and I would love a reprint sooner than later. 2 of my buddies wanted to use Sinful variants but they are priced out.
The best part is it's not just the tcg fucking people over, every single new archetype in master duel is practically made entirely into ultra rares
Why I will never play competitively. My small group of friends have just kept it between us since we grew up with the franchise. We retired from it back in ‘06 and then came back to it in ‘23
we don’t go by the ban lists and we use proxies for the expensive cards. It’s so much more fun.
I totally agree with the pricing on singles and preorders, it’s nuts.
IMO the game should also fundamentally change its card design as well as what you said in the video:
Less card text fluff, Less "Non-game" gamestates (As in Moments where in order to try to play the game you need luck in drawing DRNM/Droll/etc rather than smart sequencing) And a bunch of more stuff I honestly dont have the time to write (And most ppl the time/will to read it as it wuold be as long as a video script essentially)
OCG and Asian English Set Design are the best design for our Community
My town only has one card shop and it doesn't run yugioh anymore. They say they do, but no one shows up so they just say they don't. Saturdays at 12noon. Sadly no one shows up. It's just pokemon and magic the gathering. It sucks.
I'll miss you, hopefully we can stay in touch. It was an honor to meet you back when I first started taking my channel seriously, and you've been a great inspiration for how to play and learn a deck and a style of video for myself and for my enjoyment and effort. I haven't finished the entire video, but good luck wherever you go.
Good on you. Wish more would make a stand.
We have the same problem with single cards in Australia. When people from NA say a card will be $40-50 for it means 100 AUD and currently SP and Wanted are 200+ AUD cards. It’s insane.
While i feel for dude, you cant be bummed that shits expensive and blah blah blah but say youve topped high end tournaments and played whatever, you participated in the problem. No body says you HAVE to play a fire deck with bombfires and the same 3 tier 1 decks. If you really love this game so much then except your gonna take some Ls from the dorks who wanna spend 1600$ for a deck thats gonna cost 300$ in 3 months. Play some fun decks with some uniqueness and variety. Play edison or tengu format. Theres other options to enjoy this dumb game lol.
Having a blast with Lorcana...even with a non-meta deck games are at least fun, even losses
I play Edison in paper and i f*ckn love it.
💯
I can relate. Haven't really been to locals in half a year, every time I'm going I'll just drop after round 2. And what especially sucks is that Konami doesn't care about the game's problems at all.
But hey, at least they changed the ink on NA cards so that they don't look bleached anymore🤡
Why do you drop round 2. If you are not hyper competitive why dont you enjoy the game for what it is?
I played mekk knights invoked went 1-3 and i was okay with it.
Obviously if you play locals at a higher rate you might build more frustration but i actually had fighting chances in most games.
I dont get it.
Dont get me wrong i am frustrated at staples costing 100€+.
I enjoy yugioh for its competitive scene, I enjoy playing against good players and having intense matches, but what happened to me a lot was losing round 1 due to my opponent having the out, timeout or some other unnecessary thing happening. Obv the opponent will have the out sometimes, that's not what I'm complaining about - my problem is that after you lose round 1 as an even slightly above-average player, you might play against far worse players and easily outplaying people just isn't fun if you're trying to become a better player. Additionally, you won't get more than a single pack if you lose even once most of the time (at least at the locals where I live). Why even play a tournament then?
I'm honestly not even into current Yu-Gi-Oh anymore im just hoping my locals host Edison or Tengu Format. Great video completely sums up how i feel as well
You hoestly spoke to my soul. I have been playing since day one and feel out priced. I play Warhammer and that notion is insane as most people spend about the same in theory. I work as a nurse and the idea of putting down the same price as a high tier gaming PC (which I need) or 6 pieces of card is EFFING INSANE. You could buy a designer bag and it will hold value at like 80%.
Then you have people spamming, you didn't play teledad. That's not the point, we as a customer base allowed it to happen again well multiple times. Same crap with Kash and 6 months later nuked to oblivion. Bonfire should be a super tops every deck atm is fire meaning every deck needs it. my local scene is dead too players have left in droves.
The game is a huge money sink and it should not be because hobbies should not cost the same as rent every 2 bloody months.
Also the damn right predator banlist crap needs to do a flip.
The amount of money I would spend on a tournament competitive deck I could buy myself a brand new laptop or a new mobile phone and play any Yu-Gi-Oh deck online for free against other players.
You mention both price and banlist philosophies as being connected and this last banlist actually has a really good example of this with the Air Lifter hit. At least, so I’ve heard. I’m not actually a R-ACE player but what they’ve been telling me is:
Out of all the cards to hit in that deck, they chose the one card whose limitation would outright force anyone who wants to play the deck even remotely competitive into playing the very expensive Diabellestar package.
This is lowkey actually kinda evil, like the intent with that hit is *very clear*. And that’s saying something considering the fact that pushing product has always obviously been the banlist’s top priority.
This hit is somehow even more overt, and now that Konami’s settled into this newly specific way of designing sets and having chase cards I imagine more hits like this will pop up in the next year or two. Budget alternatives will get squashed.
You said the banlist practice has been terrible yet your last video says “best banlist ever!”
If this is your takeaway, you didn't listen to what I said in the video.
It *is* the best banlist we've had in years, but it's not good enough. Limiting the floodgates when they should be banned is insane, and again the Air Lifter hit is a rather egregious example of bad banlist philosophy and set design coming to a head to juice players.
It's not contradictory to say that it's one of the best lists we've ever had and also still be frustrated with the overall direction of R&D in yugioh!
Yeah unfortunately this has been Konami’s practice for the competitive game since Phantom Darkness in 2008. In the original DM era not everything meta defining was secret rare, and the ones that were you had a 50% chance to pull in a box as there were only 2 different ones.
Part of the appeal of time wizard formats is the game is extremely accessible and we don’t play on Konami’s predatory terms. That’s all that my locals are doing these days, modern doesn’t have a local scene anymore like you mentioned.
We need to copy the OCG rarity system to bring in more people.
to be honest with you, Skyhawk, i've felt the same way after the laterst banlist. After going through the process of investing in a deck and having it banned out from under me several times the past few years (First it was having to scrap Appliancer when Verte was banned, then it was Fluffal when it lost 2 copies of Gamma during a time Droll was everywhere, to Cyberse Libromancer recently losing Circular, and thus losing access to Laplacian.) along with rising card prices for "better decks" that have throughly demoralized me to continue paper play as well. I realize yeah if I COULD play Fluffal again.... if i cought up 100 dollars for SP plus however much an unchained engine or a horus engine costs. I COULD build a different Libromancer variant from Cyberse, but goodstuff synchros and a 2nd ritual engine like mikanko and staples for that would be far more expensive compared to how affordable the Cyberse Sage build was. And if I actually wanted to "get serious" by just meta chasing, that's even more expensive, especially in light of Air Lifter to 1 sapping all of my desire to even ENTERTAIN r-ace. I know our local Purrley player feels like THEY need to spend a bunch of money now because of the hits to the quick-plays.
But that just means I don't really get to enjoy card games because yugioh and magic and pokemon are what's dominant in my area, and 2 of those 3 are prohibitively expensive, and i don't really enjoy pokemon the same way i enjoy yugioh. So I guess I don't get to play paper card games anymore until either yugioh fixes it's problems with price (because we know MTG never will) because stores don't really support the smaller/less popular games with more accessable price points like Digimon.
so all i can really do is play on online clients now. Even though that means losing to maxx c most of the time on master duel, or deal with the predatory mtx on duel links in order to play Rush Duels. It's such a sad sate of affairs.
I think you have to keep in mind to sell the cards at some point.. that is the only way to get out of the komonay cycle.. and yeah i know i also want to keep my loved cards but yeah
Never forget that u can get money back from.your Investment in cards.
BUT even my who sold cards wich i loved to use.. just lose interest bcs it takes freaking much time to look out when to sell my cards at a 'good" point... Its Frustrating
And I just want to say, way back when you were coaching me on Fluffal, I want to say thank you so much for helping me in what little way you could. I appreciate it, even if Konami had made the game too hostile for either of us to stick with it.
Even in Master Duel they are greedy af. The gems needed to play Mannadium is absolutely ridiculous, and it isn't even at full strength. I made an entire new account just to play it, and I'm STILL grinding to complete the deck list, it's disgusting. I can't imagine how you feel having to shell out that amount of money to stay competitive. How is that sustainable for any casual player? I would absolutely love to get into paper YuGiOh but it's just not possible with current prices, and I know I would want to build something competitive. I hope things change, bless
Yup Master duel is just expensive in theory as paper and that is wrong. Sick of grinding for new cards with QoL that needs to be increased.
I switched to strictly master duel over a year ago. Trying to keep up with the TCG is tireless. I'm over it. Couldn't agree more with points in this video !
I did this three years ago. Still waiting, and it's only gotten worse :^)
Couldn’t agree more with you. I’m at a point where I am playing tearlaments for 1,5 years now. Simply because I don’t want to spend like 600€ for a new meta trend deck/engine.
Imo they would make the same if not even more money if they started to adapt to the ocg printing model.
And you still had to pay 200€ for imsetty because the banlist said so
I hate that some players are such cucks because “it’s always been that way”. This is BEFORE populus! And I know it’s just gonna get worse. I lost respect for a lot of top players I used to look up to for advocating for these high prices. And the prize support doesn’t warrant these prices.
But it has been that way. When were meta cards ever cheap?
@@Asim-nm1bc fucking toss! You could play salad on relatively budget. Yeah sure cynet mining was $30 but not $100! You could actually manage to get these cards. Also bird up in 2021, Draco future was only $30 and you didn’t need dpe. Tri-brigade in 2020. I could go on. Bonfire and wanted is quite literally impossible to get without getting a second job or “hustling” for a game who’s only reward is “fun”
@@Asim-nm1bc do you want me to bring up domain monarch from 2015 as well?
I’m with you on this; agreeing wholeheartedly, with a heavy heart. I’ll stop entertaining Konami at this time with you. Enough is enough.
A game should not be so expensive, so financially, so driven to the point it burdens the players.
Only way to make a change is to stop, that’s what history teaches, so I will.
Thank you for speaking out, you demonstrated much courage and strength to deny a desire that you have long cherished for this game, and to speak out. You encourage us to take an honest, unbiased and objective look at the state of the game for ourselves.
Good on you. I've never bought anything at these ridiculous prices and it's great to see other people finally starting to say no. 40 pieces of cardboard should not cost you a thousand dollars. You don't have to let a company rake you over the coals like this. It's not like you win anything for competing anyway, and there's a free simulator you can play all you want for free.
Maybe if you still wanted to do youtube videos, you could try making budget deck builds. Something like an under $20 deckbuild challenge series or something to help encourage others to stop fueling Konami's greed but still be able to have fun at locals.
Yeah same here i really want to play fire king but its not possible at all its a night and day difference between having the package and not having it. It is so ridiculous for a damn structure deck of all things to be such an expensive deck
The big thing that turned me off of Yu-Gi-Oh, is the fact that there's no collector value in anything anymore. Anything you buy could be devalued within half a year and there's no chance of you making a profit from selling. When a trading card game stops being about trading cards, and becomes about rotating money around, then the spirit of your trading card game is dead.
The ban list is especially egregious because it's not used by Konami as a way to ban problematic cards, it's used to devalue popular card sets, and push new card sets to make money. Rather than banning things it's used to make money.
This used to be a card game that I could happily play with my friends in the library during high school before class starts, now it's a money pit from which there is no return that none of my friends play anymore.
You may be a nobody as you said but I feel like this rant needs to be heard. It mirrors everything I think. I haven't had fun ever since AGOV came out because I cannot spend money on SP:Little Knight and the Sinful Spoils package. People will say that you can play other decks but Sinful Spoils is pretty much all the meta. Other decks can try to match up but eventually just fail.
Opening products sucks. It's horrible, just horrible. The only time I had fun opening YGO product in recent years was with a case of Rarity Collection and that just goes to show how good it would be for the game as a whole to have cards available in different rarities even in main sets.
I started doing the same last year and will continue to do so this year. Didn't buy a single product or attend a single locals in 2023. I'd love to play in paper again but the TCG is a mismanaged greed fest that I want no part of.
Same.
I just met you and i think you're awesome. Much love Issac, you are an amazing person and i wish you the best in life. Respect and all the best
Subscribed, just found your channel. Hope this video reaches more people so Konami can address this issue in the future. Good luck on your new path👍.
Best of luck in life bud. I feel your pain, I have been playing since day 1. Been a fan of the anime, watched every episode. I remember waiting a LONG time bc kids wb played reruns more than anything and finally catching the end of the duel between yugi and Pegasus… but it’s ok bc we have to move on we have to adapt and we have to grow. Pain is part of the process. Feel better. ❤
You know what tcgs are booming in my community?
Digimon, Shadowverse, Vanguard, Shadowverse, Weiss Scharwz.
Meanwhile any locals here has maybe 2 boxes of some 6 month old Yugioh set and not a single new set.
If you haven't tried Lorcana I'd implore you to give it an honest shot. It's still new enough to give a fresh spin on the MtG formula but is less bricky because you don't fill your deck with useless lands. Also your opponent can't prevent you from playing necessarily because there are no actions you can make outside of your turn. My biggest gripe in yugioh is how many decks play on my turn and thus prevent me from actually having a turn. Fuck that shit.
You seen the new fiendsmith cards amazing well done konami.🤣
Mad respect to you Skyhawk, hopefully you'll find the same and better fulfillment in something that fairly honors your giant will in the future
Yea i understand this. Luckily i dont like sinful spoils decks more than other decks in tournament, so i buy nice proxies for my pet deck that runs WANTED while i wait for a reprint or it gets hit on banlist
Hey we've talked a lot before, and I fully understand your perspective and I thank you for being one of the few to not suck up to Konami's predatory practices. Much respect
I know what you mean, I can’t pull anything for the life of me out of these sets. And I need SP to even play the meta rn, mainly because I have most of the orcust cards but missing the extra deck monsters because SP is so expensive.
Save up for the card and stop buying packs, the SP isn't getting reprinted until the mega tins later this year.
@@Tyler-Wiley we just need to be like the OCG and have all rarities of the cards we need to play the game. They even have commons of the staple cards in their sets. You could literally spend less than $50 for a meta deck in their game. We just need to boycott them until they start making TCG like the OCG. They are milking money out of Europe and North America, and people need to be woke. They would make a lot more sales if a lot more people played and bought their products. Even if they’re just pulling commons. Those common rarities are gonna sell for the staple cards.
I played since the start, quit at duelist alliance... tried to return now after master duel to paper play. The game is close to dead in my country, but still I wanted to try socializing and whatnot with a small niche community.
Issue is I can't justify the price of a piece of cardboard at 100-120€ each, 1000€ for a handful of them, when I know for a fact that they will get printed for 0.02€-2€ down the line.
Unfortunately due to the niche nature of yugioh here, most people are competitive in nature... so yeah. I'm basically just buying cards for fun at this point.
I'll probably play these expensive decks on master duel and buy them for pennies later on for nostalgia in cardboard form.
It's really extremely difficult to be part of a community that is divided by money to such an extent.
Konami reached a point where I feel like I'm abused by a corporation because I got hooked on something as a kid. The fact that the OCG can crack boxes and build decks, get the cards they want is a spit in my face as well.
No matter which yugioh sealed product I look at, maybe aside from structure decks, they are just not worth the box price.
Some boxes are sold for 27€ on clearance by stores on cardmarket and in the few local places we have in the country and they aren't even worth that much.
You can buy a box for 60€ and open 20€ worth of cardboard that you probably cant use without ordering the rest of the engine (horus/centurion) rarity bumped to the sky for 10-20-30€ a card.
It's just unreasonable.
Maybe if it held some value like old MTG I'd be fine with it, but I just look at that 120€ WANTED card and see 0.02€ of value.
OP is cool and edison is always an option
Got out when Nekroz was the top deck years back and sold all my stuff. It's the Konami formula for TCG. Expensive as hell new meta deck, you shell out a ton of money to play it. Then it gets nerfed to unplayable within a year. Happened with Qliphorts, happened with Shaddolls, and pretty much every other major deck I was around for. There comes a point for every player where you have to go 'is it worth spending hundreds of dollars for paper cards when you can play free online?'
Konami TCG won't ever change the set design because treasure hunters and resellers exist in a much higher capacity then in the OCG. Those people alone buy so many cases of sealed product just to chase and resell the chase cards. Konami doesn't care about the players, they care about the buyers. That blatant fact is why I typically dont buy sealed product at all, everything is second hand or singles
This is the main reason right here. Many people in tcg treat the game like an investment and buy cases of each box. These cases might be worth less if good cards are found easier. Konami is min maxing this for profit! Not for our enjoyment
Like I understand it's business and capital and it's how 'collectable games' work and whatever. But when there's a very not silent majority of your player base saying it's too expensive something is inherently wrong
Cart before the horse mentality. There's player demand for singles. There's no player demand for sealed and basically never has been due to the expected value being so low. So stores crack cases to actually make a profit off their allocations.
I'm also quitting competitive right now. I've had enough of 500+ people tournaments where if u are just unlucky and go x-2 you don't receive ANYTHING because only top 16 is prized. I'm also tired of buying cards and get to know the last minute before a set is out that those card will be reprinted next week; or even dont knowing yet the rarities of the set that will be out in 2 weeks. I'm tired also of having to spend 1000 euros for the top meta in a wide meta where you can lose to 0.02 cent shifter and in the next banned in FEW months your deck could get absolutely destroyed.
Ever since I started playing instead of collecting I lost so much money my Tear deck is like -500€
Until Fluff gets a searcher then you’ll be back 😉
I started playing the TCG again after entering college and decided to build Dragonmaids cause I loved their designs. Pure Dragonmaids worked for me casually, but when I tried to complete and saw that I couldn't do shit cause everyone had Ash Blosom or other forms of expensive staples, I just got so discouraged. I still sometimes play MD, but the game as a whole right now is so absurdly expensive I see no point in investing on cards that will most definitely become either banned or obsolete in a spam of a few months.
They could just copy OCG pull rate and I guess nobody would complain.
Or at least just make 6 Scr slot instead of 10 in the main set. It is still crazy to me that you only pull 2 Scr out of 10 Scr pool from 1 box with no alternative rarity.
I get it, I also believe Wizards of the Coast does bad things to their consumers too with Magic in comparison.
Yeah sealed product sucks. Adopt the OCG sealed model. Access to cards is a necessity. People will still want higher rarity even if it’s available in lower rarity.
Having full arts, or alternative arts in a set of the Chase cards would help things.
Like buying a side set to get 3 bad ultra rares DIMENSION GUARDIANS to get grabage feels bad. Buy a core set to pull a $5 secret rare is shit.
At least with alternative arts it's a different art, but you can get the same card for less.
I quit yugioh, and now play Digimon. I can build a full deck for $100 Canadian, or I can build it for $500-1000 if I want it full of alt arts.
Digimon has hand traps now. After playing yugioh since 2005 I strongly recommend.
Great final video! Much love to you and good luck on whatever you decide to do next.
I 100% agree with the sentiment about locals. I very rarely get to go to them anymore but when I do ours usually last about 5 rounds. As I don't play very often I don't spend loads of money on meta decks, I'll go rogue at most. But then I basically just spend the next 4 hours getting stomped by top meta decks and I just get bored watching the same decks do the exact same things for 5 rounds
I don't think Konami is gonna change at all when it comes to product and cards
Consider yourself out, dude. They plainly will never make this better. Best of wishes.
I feel it however price hasn't been one of them. The biggest issues I've had has been Konamis lack of thought that goes into card design. for example (Giving Tearlament an in archetype lvl 2 so they could abuse Elf and toad. Causing toad to get hit while tearla got INFINITELY more support then got indirect support with ishizu. All ge while then hitting starter and elf. Same with the banlist. Centurion a synchro based archetype that if played without calamity would just get a pop and draw off lagatia on ops turn. Has room for a lot of non engine and a plethora of one card starters. Compare that to Live twin which is the SAME THING only difference is it's link based and doesn't play around nib. Centurion should be their 2-1.5 at best yet konami didn't ban calamity when they def should have. Lab untouched by banlist and they get transaction rollback. They could have hit Beatrice and calamity and SOMETHING from lab and that would have made the format alot more healthy. Also Pokemon is fun and does have interaction just not in the same way that yugioh has where it's on the ops turn. Cards like Marnie judge Iono, path, status abilities that affect bench space. I say this as someone who tries it and didn't think I'd like it and ended up playing it for more than a year.
True, thank you
I wish maxx c was banned in md as well, but until they fix it and allow a going 1st or 2nd deck choice prior to each game, that won't happen.
I feel you bro im considering just returning to traditional format and enjoying yugioh to its fullist without worrying about a banlist taking away your archtypes important pieces it need to function after you have spent all the time and energy buying the cards in the first place. One advantage we had when upperdeck was in charge of yugioh and managing tournaments was that they ran advanced, and traditional tournaments. I learned my lesson back in 2008 when playing Gladiator beast and spending $300 on a Heraklinos to never spend that sort of money on cardboard again that why rather go back to traditional format and tucking my isioldes, my pot of greeds, and oll the important pieces of my archtypes that the banlist is restricting me from in the first place.
subbed. i clicked expecting a rant to maybe grin or laugh at but the ending hit really hard. 100% agree btw. right now i'm taking a pretty long break (as well?;) cus they nuked my tearlaments for no reason imo. waiting for the new lightsworn cards cus i love the archetype (yugiboomer here). anyway hope you're feeling much better about your decision in the near future. i think you will and idk maybe try goat and/or edison in the mean time. it's mostly fun and cheap with a growing community. take care.
Respect my Canadian brother, I love dinos and appreciate your thoughts and knowledge. All the best
100% agree with the crazy expensive state in yugioh, that said buying crazy expensive staples to play questionable decks "competetively" does not help😅
Playing the good cards in a decent deck would help in getting money back to help get back investment
Certainly did for me with Lab, got way more back than what i paid