Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Consequences of Links
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 มี.ค. 2024
- A video about the lasting impact Links have had on the game of Yu-Gi-Oh!
Music:
Binary Game - 999 OST
Automobile Interior - AI: The Somnium Files OST
Event 11 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 4 OST
Tag Team - Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 2 OST
Event 15 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 4 OST
Day to Day - Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 5 OST
An Die Freude - Catherine OST
Ideal and the Real - Persona 5 Royal OST
Twitter: / renegaderedoer - เกม
ppl give pendulums WAY too much shit for what they were, Links are objectively more broken in every way shape or form
Players when links:were free!!!
Links:I wouldn't say free more like...under new management
….no one cared about Pendulums being good because well- they never were plus people only complained about how complicated they were
@@gabrielsalahi3656they never were, yet they were a tier 0 threat during MR3, and still have cards on the banlist to this day. I do agree that Links are way worse than pendulum ever was
Yeah I feel like people confuse the game getting faster in general with Pendulum being broken. There were some really good engines and decks with pendulum but you could only really play pendulum with other pendulum cards. Links sped up the game to a crazy degree with how generic they are for sure
If I had to guess it's because of infinite value and because it was indeed during that time period... But I'll be honest with you, the problem were always the XYZs, including the problem with pendulums.
I wish they understood the “cost to access to power” ratio
The Knightmares are PERFECT examples of good card design (….the main 3 not the crazy ones that were banned/limited)
They are in the extra deck and generic meaning access to them is basically always
But their cost still required 2 monster plus a discard
And their effect wasn’t anything crazy, just a single pop
This right here is what the entire concept of an extra deck was meant for (outside of boss monsters) it was meant to be a way for your deck to access something it normally wouldn’t have AT A COST. If your deck has no answers to back row, the extra deck at least gives you a possible way to pop a card even if you have to go way down in card advantage
Exactly!, it wasnt supposed to be free that you could just yave all these answers to everything while simultaneously having poor deckbuilding decisions. This is why combo decks can overextend and go unchecked.
Just look at how rush pretty much designed their rules. Every card is a soft once per turn but effects always have some sort of [REQUIREMENT]
Ye
And now we have sp that doesn’t need a discard and removes cards on the field, basically power creeping knightmares
No the knightmares were absolutely atrocious game design. By making cards a discard to pop that any deck could access, it's benefits FAR outweighed any potential cost, made more trap and stun decks inherently stronger because they had to deal with the knightmares. Awful cards.
Pendulums werent even a hard mechanic to understand, there was just so many people UNWILLING to understand it. Metalfoes literally brought Yang Zing out of the grave of "Unplayable" decks and then everyone else went on to abuse Denlong in other BS.
If anything has ever ruined balance in Yugioh is how generic archtype related boss monsters tend to be. Be it their effects or summoning conditions. Goyo Guardian literally got gutted and all they did was specify the attribute for the Tuner.
Im a huge believer that pendulums are hated bc of they way the cards LOOK. Like they just wernet graphically designed well so no one wants to deal with them
@@maxa7535that was my reason for not liking them way to much on a card 😭
They gave pendulums BS because most people suck at math. The passing rate for Math in the USA is 32%. People just are SLOWWWW.
Konami be like:
“Okay guys, Links are working too well. They’re too generic and the decks players are playing cannot play anything else because they’re too good”
“Well, why don’t we make one of those famously terrible generic Level 8 Synchros and give it an Omni, but ONLY if you’re playing these generic link monsters? It’s not like people want to play Synchros again anyway.”
And thus, the inbred chimpanzee Borrelload Savage was born. Legends say he came out intoxicated with nothing but a copy of Halq and Arourodon each hand. He then immediately mauled his handlers with his 4000 ATK and escaped to strike fear in the Yugi-playing populace.
These days he hangs around a 7-11, biting peoples ankles and disappointing his sister Barrone, a massive international crime lord who does everything he does and a pop for anything.
Kids, don’t do Omnis.
Rescue ace and snake eyes brought him back from the slums. They gave him another chance though, and was finally able to be the terror again... UNTIL. He got arrested! And for now in Ban Jail, with an unknown trial date for the crimes he committed. He was caught with his sister. The Snake-Eyes gang led by Diabelstar. Tipped off the cops. And oh boy. They found other banned cards supposedly.
Oh. The sad story of Borreload Savage Dragon.
Generic omni negates were one of the biggest problems ever added to this game.
@gyppygirl2021 Omni's that destroy* Regulus is an omni but the fact that he doesn't destory and outs himself makes him so much more reasonable.
Cards like Appo are also broken but that's because theyre the cherry in top of another endboard stopping (for 90% of decks) their most important effects.
Baronne destroying is half of why shes so good she not only stopped the effect but also any othe effects unless that card had a GY effect since it destroyed them.
@@IC-23imo main deck Omnis aren’t bad because they’re less generic by nature of them being in the main deck
@@IC-23 The reason Regulus is bearable is because its a main deck monster. Its less reliable to set up than an extra deck monster, meaning you won't see it on the board every game.
The problem with boss monsters and link monsters almost in general is that most of them dont require a monster from their archetype to summon, if halq needed a crystron to be summoned or only summoned crystron tuners it wouldnt have been such a powerful card
Yeah it's a shame that some of these power cards aren't more restrictive in their summoning conditions. Work great for the weaker archetypes but when they are too splashable, it makes the strong decks even stronger.
Verde anaconda and Halq being the most prominent for link
@@zero1343I feel like if Verte was ever banned, a good amount of the game would be slightly better
@leoultimaupgraded9914 Verte been banned for 2 years somebody been getting illegal wins off you
The “Colossus is a Link 1” bit had me rolling
It may not have always played out in a fun way, but the evolution of Yu-Gi-Oh mechanics really has been an interesting journey.
“Fiendsmith is a really cool use of links because it facilitates their equip gimmick” oh my sweet summer child. Please do not look at what they’re doing with those cards in the OCG.
I already know. Beatrice has gotta go now right? Also did not register Moon of the Closed Sky is a GENERIC light fiend link 2 to make them always accessible. Links and design balance baby!
Why the link 1 doesn't fiend lock you, I don't understand. It feels like it was designed to be a fiend engine/extension but then they forgot to restrict it and now it is way too generic.
FiendLink to the moooon!
@@RenegadeRedoer It's another 1 card combo engine that let's the user summon 14-30 monsters. Banning Beatrice won't stop it.
Instant beatrice is one hell of a drug
“LINK SUMMONING AND ITS FUTURE
Introduction
1. The VRAINS Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the yugioh meta game.”
Lunalights use pendulums as extra spells instead of summoning everything every turn. The bullshit that followed from there is another topic entirely
Agreed, links are way too easy to summon. Fusions required polymerization or a fusion spell, synchro’s need a tuner and non tuner to add up to its synchro monster, Xyz requires monsters of the same level as the rank of its Xyz. Link can use what ever the hell it wants. Links should have had some kind of specific requirement to bring them out.
Can't really blame them for just giving up and making Rush Duel at this point. That game is super fun, too.
rush duel really is a "fuck it we need a reset button"
Don't be surprised if it experiences extreme power creep, too. I've heard it's already in the works.
Link summon is just tribute summon on crack
I think the only reason links don't get as much of a bad rep as pendulums is because there's less card text and they're pretty easy to include in your deck once you understand them.
Any deck can play with link monsters (which is arguably a bit of a problem in and of itself). You pretty much HAVE to be playing a pendulum deck to play pendulums the way they were intended. There's a reason that decks like Amazoness only really set up pendulums as a part of a combo rather than to actually pendulum summon, and only recently have competitive pendulum decks like Melodious seen decent play in part because its cheap and can be incorporated into other decks as a supplemental package.
I’d say another problem with pendulums is even if you play with a pendulum deck you’re effectively locked into whichever archetype you’ve chosen. A lot of them say you’re locked out of summoning monsters outside of the archetype, like Qlifort.
Ok so what’s the actual issue with Pendulums? At some point people were complaining Pendulums could only stick with Pendulums and they weren’t splashable, but now that they are people are bitching about that?
Whatever bro Imma play Endymion.
The issue is that people don't understand how pendulums work, therefore they're Awful and Broken and Game Killing. Meanwhile there are only a tiny handful of actually broken pendulums, and the rest of them range from mediocre to actual garbage. Especially since MR4 completely gutted the mechanic.
Meanwhile, link monsters are still running rampant and getting banned, but _clearly pendulums are the problem_
@@gyppygirl2021 Fucked up thing though is with pendulums relegated as there are through having to use link arrows, actually seem reasonably balanced (depending what deck you play otherwise certain pendulum archetypes are straight up gutted without links). Ultimately though, as someone who enjoys pendulum decks the most, I feel like I've been taking shit from all sides weather it be other yugioh players or the developers themselves because of repping it as a lover of the mechanic.
Like excuse me for utilizing a mechanic that, by design, makes you go -2 from jump just to engage with a mechanic that should net me benefits at least worth the cost. Even then; those cards you go -2 on should have effects that can net me some amount of benefit whether it be recurring cost, interacting with the field or outright special something else if they are designed fairly. But like, not every pendulum deck can get that kind of gas because despite going -2 they design and/or power creep them as if they're afraid of giving ANY Pendulum archetype a 1 card combo. So yeah sure I pay for sins that other special summoning mechanics get to just do. Thanks Konami. Thanks for giving me an actual rewarding mechanic and simultaneously bullying me for my joy for it.
Literally having to suffer for having a second normal summon as a mechanic rather than a card effect.
But hey at least some newish pendulum support is good enough that it's splashable.
@SorryIBlackedOut Well said, well said. It's clear that somewhere, they just decided that "Pendulum = Bad" and never turned back on it, even though there's so much left to explore with the mechanic. I choose to blame this on the people who hated it so much in the first place... but the truth may never be known.
@@gyppygirl2021 Fr. But like even through all the poor reception to this day from even prominent yugi-tuber talk heads, at least the mechanic existed enough to find an audience and pilots to play the deck. Enough to teach how the mechanic actually works otherwise I don't even think I would've liked the mechanic much less the archetypes that run it. With enough support and calm minded individuals maybe Pendulums can be looked at with more favoring one day. Because I believe it deserves a respected presence in this game just like every other special summon.
@@SorryIBlackedOut TH-cam ate my response ._.
I feel like Links should've mainly existed just to take leftover, underutilized mechanics and make them relevant. I liked how they mainly functioned through Columns, and them utilizing counters is also a great idea.
Thought for sure the "top 10 links" was going to immediately cut to "thanks for watching"
Those of us old enough to remember know this problem truly started with Dino Rabbit.
i feel they are a little to easy to summon, they’re like if contact fusion was good
God they really are just contact for everyone.
I mean, it is good though. Its just that we don't have generic contact fusion monsters. Otherwise they're functionally the same thing, except they have a defense stat and no link rating.
The big problem from a design standpoint when it comes to link monsters is that its synchro climbing but without the need of tuners and basic math, so any deck can do it. You just have to know how to count and understand what a variable is.
The issues that links represent has been growing since fusions became a think. With rituals you needed the special card, the monster it corresponds to, and resources to spend. With fusions you only need the special card and the materials to spend. With synchros the special card and the materials were semifused. With XYZ you only needed matching levels no special card needed. With pendulums you can just mass summon every turn with every material being the special card that you can't functionally run out of. Lastly with links practically everything is material. See the problem here? Each new summoning method made it easier and easier until the situation we have now was produced.
fusions and ritual exist at pretty much the same time though each with their own advantages and disadvantage with rituals needing 2 corresponding cards and fodder monsters while fusions needed 3 specific cards
synchros and xyz may be way easier summoning mechanics but they were also leveraging the lvls parameters of monster cards in adjacent ways largely unused by previous mechanics with synchros resembling something of a mix of ritual and fusions early on too
pends imo were outright ridiculous right outa the gate like whose bright idea was it that an entire category of monster card types can infinitely resurrect themselves turn after turn, they werent even leveraging something unused but forcing the game to create new rules for them instead
links in turn seemed like a failed attempt at trying to balance pends but at their core they couldve been balanced if the materials cost werent as generic as only needing monsters of different names and/or effect monsters
@@YukiFubuki. with rituals you needed the spell, the monster that corresponds to the spells, and the materials to use up, however with fusions you only need the spell and the materials. The point is that each new summoning method is easier to pull off than the last. Sure synchros and XYZs have mechanical restraints but the truth is that synchros are easier to pull off than fusions because you don't need a spell to facilitate it, and XYzs are easier than Synchros because you don't need a monster subtype to facilitate it. It is a problem that's been around since the very start and has only gotten worse with each new method until its climax with links where it is so easy to pull off the summoning method it's warping the game. This is tied with the concept of an extra deck where unfettered access to what is essentially a second hand that you have full control over its contents can cause issues.
Fusion predates rituals, and both were equally bad until they invented fusions that didnt use a spell, or fusion spells that used the graveyard.
@@LazurBeemz both were present at the beginning of Yugioh but fusions did get significant development thanks to GX which is where each season having a new summoning method comes from.
@@andresmarrero8666 yeah im not saying that it wasnt progressively easier to pull off but pends is where they went from going step by step to a giant leap in terms of the actual mechanism behind it as fusion, rituals nad synchros requires specific cards to even be able to preform it while xyz essentially removed the materials used to make them from being further used until you can detach them but pends pretty much takes the cake with its indefinite loop and setup premise
I don't know if Links not existing would have prevented a lot of the issues but they certainly didn't help. There are like a billion different Fusion cards that can just be summoned for free by having the materials on your field - or even being MORE broken than Links by including the GY. ABC is one major example and that was printed before Links were a thing - Konami's practice of "We want to treat all the mechanics as important but really we'll give Fusion all the toys" began in Arc-V.
They aren't the standard but there ARE cards that restrict only a single type of summon. Auroradon is the most famous example, that only locks you out of Link summoning because even during Link Era getting 3 free tokens from a Link monster was obviously over the line. But there also are some cards like Darktellarknight Batlamyus, Variety Comes Out or Backup Warrior that lock you out of a single mechanic.
I think that half of "Nemuleria" is supposed to also allude to the horror motif of the cards by referencing the occult icon Lemuria (that also is a Lovecraftian location). Frankly even if they just localized it as "Remleria" it would make a lot more sense (REM sleep is where you dream).
An interesting idea, but I disagree. Nemu’s name is supposed to invoke a Princess sort of vibe (ネムレリア being a mixture of ネム (sleep) and レリア (similar to the rella of Cinderella).
The sweets monsters are not Lovecraftian in nature, as they are there to protect Nemu.
If anything, they fall more in line visually and act like Madoka Magica’s familiars/witches.
Links should a a last resort IN ARCHETYPE extender, that if all your combos gets negated your disrupted you can end on a slightly better end-board so you can survive your opponent's turn then be able to try again your next turn. I think unless link boss monsters are really easy to mess up because they always have strong effects and are super easy to get out, which is why its super important for the bigger link monsters to be less generic. I think links can give bad or underpowered archetypes a little power boost especially if they need a certain card but have no searchers, but its just generic link climber after another.
Salamangreats are a pretty neat Link deck, doing "Reincarnation summon" where you summon a second copy using at least the first copy to gain additional effects. They also can lock themselves on the occasion.
You could summon Trouble Sunny off of IP Masquerana and an Evil Twin link 2 during the opponent's turn.
"Sir... the second broken summoning mechanic has released in master rule 6"
You HAD to put some work into making a Synchro or an Xyz. Links basically read "anything farts out anything"
Pendulums even require you to set your scales before you pendulum summon... and not all of them have good pendulum effects. Some even have no pendulum effects at all, so they're literally just scales.
Every mechanic has deck building concessions/requirements involved, except links. Just look at the impact of the link-1 pool. They don't even need to be good, they just need to send something convenient to the grave. Linkuriboh immediately gave altergeist a search (and banned level eater), almiraj + gardna filled the grave with materials for invoked and enabled the mekknight column mechanic.
The worst part of the links only era was that in Link Evolution, for a time it applied to the campaign mode. So try playing Yusei vs Jack but only having access to 1 synchro summon at a time. Even though neither player was playing links.
This annoyed me so much; Even more so when I saw they didn’t update the Challenge Decks to better function in Link format.
I fucking love zone consideration and I wish it was even more relevant.
Mekk-Knights, Magical Musketeers, Weather Painters - shit's legit rad.
Synchro is my favorite extra deck mechanic and my second favorite is fusion. Xyz is okay.
I didn't mind pendulums.
I absolutely do not like links however.
Hope you're having a good day
Well, for me it's like this about each gen:
1-Rituals: Fairly balanced nowadays.
2-Fusions: Still pretty balanced since 1st gen, but it got some boost and Glad. Beast... Damn I loved them, broken until blackiisted.
3-Syncros: My favourite gen and archtype. Also, the gen that started the path to mass summon.
4-XYZ: Hate this gen. They are weaker syncro versions, but easier to bring out... in most cases.
5-Pendulum: As a gear, it's a good mechanic for fooder. But that's it. It's overstimated. Still a good system.
6-Link: Take the best mechanics of the earlier, and fuse it into a mechanic to summon powerful creatures while controling the board position of cards. I love and hate this gen, because it overcomplicated the game, while also setting the path to the actual 1-3 turn 20 minute game meta. About their powers... please man, we have Chaos Dragon banned since gen 1. Same as Firewall.
PS: I'm still waiting in MD tonrelease the Yubel supp... Damn how I would love to revive my Yubel decks
Loved your analysis! Was a great listen. I accidentally tapped next video near the end so the last thing i heard was "this may be controversial, but i also like-" and i thought you ended the video there. Keep making good vids!
I clicked on this cause i read, "the consequence of Duel Links", and was pretty down to hear about the decline of Duel Links. As time went on I kept foreseeing the transition to Duel Links but it just never did. Then randomly, I saw the title again and read it correctly this time and my brain grew a tooth. Good video though lmao, it was very entertaining
At last, someone who share my hate for skystrikers.
Isn't that most of the Yugioh community?
I mean i like Sky Strikers, but still. Its literally a meme to hate on the deck for being boring.
Links are absolutely the worst which is suprising because I didnt think Komoney could top pendulums. The idea of taking endless minutes to summon a bunch of monster that each have their stupid arrows pointing at each other was unbearable. I saw combos that would last 8 mins to make an "unbreakable board". Whatever happened to normal summon a monster attack and pass even xyz era had decks like Bujins and Geargia which were tier 1 decks that would be a turn based games. To all the new players, Yugioh was not about putting your opponent in checkmate every fricking turn, traps were fun and every top deck would make cool plays.
Pendulums: A pretty decent idea, monsters who are spells or monsters depending on how you play them,
Pendulum Summoning: A pretty terrible idea as a whole card type mechanic. It might work in a specific archetype or set of cards, but "dump whatever you can from your hand" is not the kind of thing that should be the way a whole card type works, it's too much cheating things out for for too little work, a problem pretty exemplary of not just yugioh as a whole but also the direction yugioh went.
As for links... needing to change the game's rules to accomodate bringing a new card type should be a pretty good indicator that it doesn't belong.
These mechanics feel to me made to be abused and constitute what I think is the starting point of my issues with modern yugioh. Competitive yugioh I feel was always a little bs, but that's how competitive goes. It's the fact that it can actually be hard to find casual games that don't just take it as a given that speeding through your cards in some kind of combo is how the game should be played that I find makes the problems less specific cards and more structural.
I cannot express enough of my hate for konami of doing WAAAAY TOO GENERIC stuff. That's what's killing a lot of good acrhetypes and cards. One rogue archetype has this really awesome boss monster or extender, but then Konami made ir splashable in every deck in existence, and it gets banned.
Thinking on Links I enjoy a fair bit. One that was sorta interesting as well as was the blueprint Valmonica used as basis for their Links is Charlemagne/Emperor Charles the Great. A Link 1 which required you to actually summon out the original Emperor Charles to actually get to him, essentially making him a straight upgrade since he copied the name and effect of OG Charles.
It was definitely an interesting route to upgrading the Infernoble boss monster and it does make Infernoble feel a bit like it's not playing like usual decks. It's got one main plan and that's getting to Charlemagne as quickly and efficiently as they can, then loading him up with his fellow knights and Angelica's Ring for protection and negates.
I think Xyz is the best mechanic excluding Zoodiacs. They are generic enough to fit in nearly every deck, but cannot have summon exploits like Synchros and Links unless through Rank-Up (Which often require a whole deck like Raidraptors). They also attach their materials, thus not causing floating effects the second they are summoned. I don't understand how after a solid generic Extra Deck option they flopped TWICE with Pendulum and Link.
konami need to make the next new gameplay mechanic more consistend and easy to use and power creep.
Took people long enough for a video like this to exist.
Once again it’s just more ways to tell Konami put actual restrictions and draw backs on their cards.
You want to design broken cards, fine, just make sure they cut off your left arm and stab your eye to use those broken effects 😂. I exaggerate but some equivalent exchange is necessary. Sad part is, there are a lot of decks with that balanced design, but because they are fair they can’t compete with the unfair no restrictions nonsense.
The "hard to use cards with broken effects" are cool to design a deck around, similarly to how Quasar Turbo was a thing back in the day.
This is totally off topic but the question has been nagging me for a while now:
What is the song at 19:05 ?
Please I beg of someone it has been stuck in my head for weeks.
It seems like a version of the song "Vamo' alla" from Final Fantasy IX.
th-cam.com/video/gLEZuDkEuDk/w-d-xo.html
@@Tuduri3 So it took me a while but I did find the original song, it was the Quatro Theme from Duel Links.
However that is so interesting how close it is to this FFIX song!
MR4 still feels like such a mistake to me. Besides making a whole bunch of archetypes and decks unplayable due to link arrows being mandatory for anything past the 1st ED monster, and tokens being able to be used as link material making old cards suddenly busted as mentioned in the video, it's also responsable for the huge powercreep in MR5 from my impression [note: I didn't play in MR4, I was on break from shortly before it dropped to sometime after MR5 had started, so I can't judge fully how strong things were in MR4]. Halq was op in MR4 already but all the overtuned link 2s like Halq and Verte etc become EVEN STRONGER when suddenly you can vomit out your whole ED and only the links and pendulums care about link arrows.
Junk Speeder was released in MR4 iirc and may have been kinda mid at the time since you were likely restricted to like 1 or 2 synchros after you summon him, but now that card is just disgusting (I know it's not enough to be meta but it now being a game of "either junk speeder resolves and the person playing it most likely wins or it doesn't and they most likely lose" is just unfun card design)
something I think would have also been nice to touch on in the video btw would have been to mention that links are probs also a big reason if not THE why some incredibly powerful non-link related cards such as Branded Fusion exist. If the deck is meant to be played without links, you gotta give them fairly insane cards to make up for it.
I think one way to fix a lot of the problems with Yugioh at the moment, is a blanket archetype lock, with a lot of the generic cards, including Links, eventually getting on card eratas that lock them to their archetypes, that way at least archetypes can be balanced around themselves and not the possibility of what they can turn into from somewhere else. Things like balancing Kightmares around Knightmares, and not every possible card ever around them.
As a Vanguard player i actually like new mechanics
Vanguard fans, Stand Up (never formally played but watched a lot of the anime, have dabbled in deck-building)!
Vanguard obviously has its issues, but it did a much better job than Yugioh of teaching new mechanics thanks to its relatively heavy focus on the cardfights and the way it integrated them in the show (including actually explaining the rules!). I think that's lessened in recent years because of the way the anime from overDress onwards have been structured/presented, but that's neither here nor there.
Either way, I hope we can agree that Vanguard was something special as far as presenting the rules of its game went.
A few friends and I occasionally pick the game back up, mostly rogue decks. Playing casually but quite frequently.
Links are pretty unappealing, speaking as a 'new / returning' playing with other returning players, it's one mechanic too many for the game. There was nothing wrong when Xyzs were as complicated as it got.
Combos are just way too long, unbreakable boards, hand trap spam. None of these things are good for the average player. Simple is better.
We almost exclusively avoid links to be honest. Which is kind of home brew. For example Lightsworns with the new support, but no links. There's enough cards in the game to make this a fun experience.
I've said this before in a different video on someone elses channel but. Try playing Yu-gi-oh without the extra deck and pendulums.
Somehow, the games a lot more fun that way for some reason. Modern Yu-gi-oh by fact, is just insanely complicated for new players. Yet for new players, they stick around to learn and play with me when the extra deck/pendulums are banned. Honestly, waaaaay more often do they stick around.
Spotted the Floowandereeze/Monarch/Eldlich player
@@LazurBeemzall floodgate hate? Combo donkey think people should beat their 10+ board with just 6 cards
and thats why rush duel should be its own think in the west outside of duel links
hard disagree on the zone management point. Personally, I feel that zone management offer so much in terms of skill expression. The fact that it is an added layer of things to keep track of in a game of Yugioh honestly makes certainly plays and outplay even more impressive. I understand that it is one more thing for players to think about that may promote slowplay, but zone management is ultimately another way that players get to interact with the game and I think that's a plus
Links are basically Xyz
But more generic
More splashable
And the same power of effects
Without the limiter of Overlay Units
overlay units were the dam to the flood, the fact that it didnt count as leaving the field and were stuck as materials onto the xyz monsters until detached was another limiter in and of itself
For me, links are a fusion between synchro (my favorite Extra Deck mechanic, BTW) and Zyz.
@@YukiFubuki. I like synchro monsters for what they do
But Xyz Summoning I find to be my favorite ED type
Powerful, generic tools, yet balanced from a mechanical standpoint
The only link monsters I feel are healthy for the game is pentestag and underclock taker. They actually feel like toolbox cards designed to help you in certain situations. Pentestag makes sure your OTK strategy doesn’t autolose to a defense position monsters and Underclock helps you get over big monsters.
They don’t have busted effects or facilitate broken combos. They just have simple niche effects that helps your already existing gameplan rather than being the entire gameplan
When people say pendulums are a problem just remember the ban list has 1 pendulum and 19 link monsters you know who’s the real bad guy here
I'm going to be honest...I actually like Link monsters and find them interesting. I wish they used their arrows for their effects again, as that added some unique strategy to the game. Not saying they aren't often broken. Just saying they're neat.
22:56
Just Wanted to Point out ONE Pendulum Archetype you Missed that seriously Doesn’t get mentioned enough.
D/D/Ds!
Pendulum Hate didn’t just come from PePe at one point. The OCG was once Terrroized By a Pendulum Deck, that Couldn’t Pendulum Summon!
Not Because you could, By they Actively Refused To, due to Design issues! As their Kepler, their Main Searcher was also the only Scale 10! And that Scale Was always unbalanced!
But that Didn’t matter to the overall playstyle since you could Extra Deck Summon out of All it’s issues! And it was only made better by the Inclusion of Slimes, Lamia, and Easy to Summon Pendulum Bosses!
The Entire Gimmick of the Deck Being Risk/Reward Focused is what makes the Deck Balanced and continues to Make it So Balanced due to how Almost every card Played has an 1000 Damage Price Payment with only a few Cards in the Deck to Help with easing that Burden!
And we Easily Got some of the Best Support for this Deck in recent Years!
A Link-2 boss that helps makes Pendulum Summoning Easier, an easy to Summon Rank 10 that Steals once per chain, an Extender, plus 3 other Monsters to add, a Field Spell, and a Trap Card (that’s abit hit or miss).
This along with Fiendsmith makes for a Fantastic Deck that can keep up it some Cards. It is a Balanced and Fair deck that Sadly gets crapped on By A lot of Other decks Like Bystials due to How Generic Boss Monsters Have Flooded A lot of the Newer Decks that come out these days.
D/D/D is GY deck all they plays comes from getting shit back from the GY and they were never good in TCG because we didn't have the cards in time and OCG doesn't really hate pendulum they never killed those decks like TCG did you can even argue that in OCG pend was always one of the best rogue decks
@@lucasalarcon3230it was painful waiting for that support, the deck really never truly got it's chance to shine over here because of it.
Still a lot of fun to play even to this day at least.
I feel like links get a bad rap not because link summoning itself is busted, but because the way they've been printed has become busted. That is to say, they keep printing link monsters that can use generic monsters or have effects that can benefit generic monsters too much like Halqifibrax. They also started turning away from the concept of arrows which should have remained integral to link monsters. Of course they'd become busted when the concepts that were meant to balance them are ignored.
It'd be like if they started printing Synchro's in mass that could use non-tuners as tuners, xyz that could use monsters with different levels, or generic fusions that could summon themselves from the ED by tributing generic monsters. Of course you'd break a mechanic if you break that mechanic's rules.
Funny you say that, Chaos Angel lets you treat a card as a tuner without it being a tuner LMAO
It you need to actively print them with restrictions, the mechanic is inherently broken. Synchros, xyz and pendulum didn't need stupid restrictions because the mechanic have inherently requirements for deck building/cost (matching levels, tuners, complete scales etc). For pendulums to work they needed to make a full deck with every card giving you a +1 (pepe). Look at how packed the pendulum cards are, look at how strong of a card darkwurm is for example, and even with cards like that the mechanic isn't competitive most of the times. You don't see people blaming xyz for zoodiac sins (very similar design with a lot of +1 in almost every card). For links is the other way around. Look at the impact of linkuriboh and the link 1 pool (almiraj, gardna, artemis etc). They are terrible if you put their effects in other mechanics context, but they are always impactful as links. They gave materials to invoked, Enabled Ecclesia/Maximus summon, enabled construct, archossaur plays on dinos, altergeist searches and so on.
Endymion was the deck that got me to like pendulums after hating them for years.
Endymion's use of Pendulums to facilitate Spell Counters as a legitimate mechanic is a testament to what Pendulum CAN do with more thought put into their design.
I’m honestly shocked Konami dident neuter the mechanic in general. Maybe limit the total amount of link arrows allowed on the field at once to like 10 so you don’t seen those giant boards and ulinks
I think a good fix to adjust links could just be more specific summoning mechanics like the xyz where you can only use dark lvl 5 dragons etc
Having a deck with an entire versatile strategy being reduced to me linking away 4 of my Dinos into the funny green girl with 4 monster negates by necessity, so I can beat over the even funnier invincible blue man link 4 with a T. rex is foul.
I despise needing to run broken cards to contend in general. Like maxx C. That’s 3 perfectly good spaces I could be using in most of my decks, but I can’t because everyone else and their grandmother run the cancer bug, forcing me to as well.
Twin headed was somewhat playable. Decks were already playing thunder dragon and 1 thunder dragon and a poly made it a pretty easy 2 card combo
This video articulates a lot of my thoughts about links very well. Even monsters like Winda have become much more of a problem because you can simply link it off to avoid its restriction on your turn. Sending monsters from your field to the graveyard so easily should just not be a thing, especially when we've had so many broken Link 1s and 2s historically. Remember when normal summoning fucking Sangan gave you a whole Halq Auroradon combo? Lmao
6:45 Crazy villain origin story here i did not even know about
Links where a mistake. They should make a mechanic that lets you stop bricking with normal monsters. Not make Token broken again.
I only came back to Yu-Gi-Oh a few years ago due to links, the concept of having a type of card to interact with positioning being relevant was just so cool, but yeah, the main thing is just, link access is just to easy in comparison
I actually agree with this. I feel like the revisions were a good decision, but of course it was because Konami screwed up. Konami did this with basically making half the early links broken. Between firewall, saryuja and Apo the monsters you climb into are ridiculous. Link VRAINS pack 1 and 2 released so early, TCG didn’t know how to properly import them and the cards. Halc, Auroradon, the aroma link, Cherubini, Vertae, Electromyte, do I need to say any more? Then we had the knightmares, goblin and mermaid had to be designed on copious amounts of drugs, there’s no way a sober person thinks these are healthy. Cerberus, phoenix and unicorn can out anything. Plus, curios and gryphon search any card in the game basically.
At least we had Izolde and Elpy for table 500 replays.
I remember being Iblee'd and U-locked with Gumblar ripping my hand away. Of all the Knightmare cards, Mermaid and Goblin were truly the worst. Phoenix, Cerebus and Unicorn are fair enough.
"please ban avramax"
WHAT?
I think pendulums are cool on paper, but they were a messy idea by Konami in execution. At first, they sucked, and then got more consistent with more searchers. Then they got broken with Pepe. Back before links to balance them with their marks, if you had 2 monsters in the link zones, you pen summon up to 5 every turn from your extra deck. I compared it to soul charging every turn without the life point cost and you can still attack. Some decks could spam out xyz's and synchro's like crazy. Not to mention some decks that could set 4 to 5 traps to stop you, but now they have to use the spell and trap zones for their scales to balance this.
My favorite is xyz's and synchros as their just cool and not too crazy in design. Plus, most of their effects are fine, with some exceptions. I think links are broken though. Sometimes they are way too easy to summon, and their effects are very busted for how generic they are. Though yugioh's always had times were things seemed broken, so maybe things haven't changed, just the tempo and speed of decks.
If you really want to balance yugioh, you need to limit how many times you can special summon in one turn. There's a limit on normal summons, so why not special summons. Maybe only 5 summons a turn or something. There not so special when you can spam the summon like crazy. I think this would create more back and forth in the game. This is just an opinion though, so I could be wrong. (:
@anthonywalker-rf3rb
The Yugioh folk hated me for saying this too.
Why are are they scared of limiting special summoning?
I'm a green player who loves creatures in MTG, and Yugioh turned me into a control player (Traptrix, Labrynth).
Like.... Dude, Yugioh really screwed my thinking when I think I can handle floodgates more rather than monster spamming.
@@edpaolosalting9116found the floo player
Hey! We are past Tearlaments. All restrictions are gone now. We can do whatever we want. Purrely can be splashed into anything as long as you have a room for 18 cards, Skull Servants, Ghostricks, Shaddolls, you name it. The new Vaalmonica can help any Rank 4 deck. As for Tenpai, well, imagine that you have a good deck with a one/two card combo to build a powerful board with, but you want an option to kill when going second. Splash in Tenpai and you are good to go. XD
Would have been a decent compromise to allow 1 extra deck summon per turn, while still allowing unlimited special summons from the deck or anywhere else.
I LOVED how links were very first introduced
They slowed the game down by forcing people to spend more resources to access the extra deck and that was great. Extra deck monster were becoming too power and cheap so upping the cost was great
…..and then they got rid of this by allowing you completely ignore Links and link arrows
And made it worse by making links even cheaper and even more powerful than just about any other extra deck monster type….
it was an opportunity to support tons of decks by giving them links and extra deck monsters
If they had continued with this deign philosophy id be much happier. In archetype Links and Generic Links are balanced by the arrows. God i wish we could see where that would have gone game design wise
They didn't slow anything, they just gatekept all decks that didn't have archetypal links or couldn't put 2 monsters on board on top of your normal combo.
But I agree, MR5 links just feel off, like they're incomplete.
@@kindlingking so you mean….EVERY deck. Because no deck had their own links at the time
That’s called- slowing the game down because EVERY deck used generic link monsters that did nothing but give you 500 extra attack
And at the time if your deck couldn’t even summon 2 dudes then….honestly links weren’t holding you back, your own deck was already ass to begin with
But when about the middle ground decks that could summon say 3 monsters, just enough for a link and- nothing to extend. Well these decks did….what they always did. Summon their one boss. Even in MR5 you could still summon your extra deck boss to the extra monster zone
The only decks nerfed by MR5 were the top tier decks that actually would summon 2-3 extra deck monsters
@@gabrielsalahi3656 did you not play at that time? Beside new link strategies that were obviously good, there were certain generic links decks could use like Isolde, Halq (in OCG) and Summon Sorc, but again you had to be able to put 2 bodies on board on top of your combo. So if you were playing something like Cydra (like I did) you were screwed. But Konami quickly realised their mistake and first released Knightmares (the ultimate generic links), then started giving out link-2s to random archetypes. Galaxy Eyes got one, Gladiator Beasts got one, Synchron got one, even Ojamas of all things got one. It's not powercreep or anything, it's an attempt to fix a glaring flaw with MR4, that is - the game wasn't build around it, it felt parasitic for players at the time.
You sound like you have very surface understanding of that period. I urge you to go to Road of the King or similar site and check out meta decks at that time. Yes, thanks to links suddenly most other decks in the game became "bad" if they didn't spam monsters on the board, but clearly not all of them, if fact some of the already good ones remained. And dark warrior is probably the shining example of the type of deck early MR4 promoted.
I think synchros are more annoying than links
When I first saw pendulums, I began to worry about the future of yugioh. That fear was justified, as I struggle to keep a smile on my face while playing my dark magician
Dark Magician was always bad so nothing changed there
@@elin111 certainly didn't help
As someone who has never played the game at any level ever, only a few hours of duel links and have not watched an anime since Zexal and mostly just played mtg with my friends, yeah I started playing master duel and immediately thought Links were the lamest thing ever. Xyz yes they're generic but you have to find ways to get high level monsters out quickly before they get wiped out to summon the higher level xyz mons, and their abilities were limited to their overlay units. Pendulum is, imo, inconsistent but very hype, really encapsulating that protagonist feel like victory is never out of reach and even helps with the earlier mechanics. Links though? Infinitely summonable into themselves, severely underutilize the only interesting thing about them (the pointers), go in every single deck so you always see them... It's just lame. Maybe I don't know what true lame is seeing as I'm a new player but I think the older mechanics are much cooler, especially pendulum. They also feel too easy for how versatile they are. Rush duel is cool but feels like them giving up
Spot on
As a duel links player who mains cyberse and all i had to do was buy 3x of the new cyberse structure deck and adjust my main cyberse deck w the good cards out of that, w my first time creating a deck without auto builder or duellinksmeta im currently 35-4 in ranked on my 1st season climbing the ladder (literally rookie every other season ive even played a pvp in)and 1 of those 4 happened bc of a misplay on my end😂
I feel like the game should've stopped at xyz.
I mean people are still giving the company money
So it can't be that bad
As a shs player I just want my link monster as well as better card design and banlists...
THANK YOU for making this Video! Hell, I thank You for Touching Upon A lot of The Game Breaking Bullshit Konami keeps doing! And Especially in Relation to LINK Monsters!
I know Yugioh was A Broken Game Long before before we Got to this Point! Lord Know Dragon Rulers Soured My Experience long before that Point, Along with Chaos Dragons!
But There was ALWAYS something Special waiting in the Wings with Busted Ass Card Design! About the Only Pendulum Related Deck I could Not Stand, was “Qlis”. For the Simple Fact that Once they Got to Towers, the Game was Over!
It took a Long While into The Pendulum Era before XYZs even got to their Own annoying Heights With Raidraptors! But those weren’t all that common!
But LINKS! These Bastards were designed in the Worse Way Imaginable! They Incorporate Every Damn Tactic into the Summoning of these Things!
They can Use Tokens like Synchros! They Can Use Trap Monster Cards Like XYZs, or Just anything to Summon an Additional Body onto the Field and LINK Climb into More Bullshit!
Their Monsters cannot Be Flipped Facedown, completely Phasing out A BUNCH of Cards that Flip Opponent’s monsters, and just genuinely Being a Pain in the Ass to Get Rid of!
Ain’t helped by the Fact that a Ton of other Crazy Archetypes Began to surface that could abuse the living shit out of Lock Out Strategies!
And Sadly, the Majority of these Card Effects Mirror the Designs from Synchro Decks! Which synchros Continue to Still Chap My Asshole with all the Bullshit they can Spew on Board!
The Innovations From the T.G. Archetype boosting Stardust Dragon just flooded Every Corner of Yugioh Now! Fusions can Pump shit out Quicker, XYZs can Also Rank Climb, or Rank Drop a New Monster on Board!
And then We suddenly get Cards Like Psychic End Punisher, Barhonne, and Bystial Dis Pater!
GENERIC BOSSES THAT SAY “NO, YOU CAN’T PLAY YUGIOH ANYMORE!”
And Now RED DRAGON ARCH ABYSS is showing up with its Monster Negate! And KONAMI doesn’t Care, because IT KEEPS Wanting to Add To These PROBLEMS!
14:45,i had to check myself cuz i deadass tought this was a coustom card lamo
I mean the issue doesnt seem like its links as a mechanic, its putting insain generic links out there. Its not exclusive to links either, see barron and borrelload savage. The issue the game has right now is there are just to many good, generic, extra deck monsters. With links, just make them more specific so you dont have every deck under the sun include apolusa as part of their end board.
I didn't like Synchros because they forced you to build around them. I don't like Links because they're too easy to do a lot with. I liked most Xyz because they were just right. You can look at the most common levels of your Main Deck monsters and decide who to put in from there.
zone placing is a fun and skillfull mechanic
Pendulums were unnecessarily complex.
Links are the worst.
Pendulums and links are 2 sides of the same coin and im surprised that yugioh has made it this far
The link monsters and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race
When you could just up and trade 1 monster for 1 other monster, i was sold. Gave me good ways to get useless bodies off board into the GY. Useful in Blue-Eyes and Sacred Beasts. And the Knightmare Links were hilarious, before 2 got banned and Nibiru existed lolol
Yeah sure but this started with xyz summoning. Everyone was forced to play them at the time.
Man, duel links is so cool and not that complex. They should make a physical version of it so that new players can come to Yu-Gi-Oh. Apso Rush Duels is cool too
I'd rather deal with links then fusion decks like branded. I'm tired of having my monsters being yonked , seeing mirror icejade , and being burned for 600 by that other dragon.
Spitting facts out here, I see. I agree with the facts presented, specifically about pendulums. My personal favorite way of using the Pendulum mechanic is Vaylantz, though the way they're currently used to lock people out is truthfully depressing... If they had given them tuners I swear we could have had a real banger on our hands. Shame.
I'll say though, as much as I dislike what links did to the game, I think it's pretty neat how they interact with Pendulums, and likely just enough with a few fixes. Giving us back the pendulum zones and banning the pendulum hate crimes such as D. Barrier, anti-spell, or anti-spell on legs would likely be enough to make pendulums see some more play in cool ways. Perhaps I am wrong for believing in Konami to make things right for Pendulums, but I do. Maybe MR 6 will let us pend summon from the face-down extra deck.
mbt and his consequences have been a disaster for the yugitubing space
Loved VRAINS... but Links were a questionable decision.
To an extent, part of the "problem" is just power creep that could happen regardless of Links - Crimson Dragon into King Calamity doesn't "need" Links - and another part of the problem was addressed with the Master Rule Revision, so you could make the case that Link Summoning is conceptually reasonable.
Even so, there have been some crazy Link Monsters that are super generic while also being plenty powerful... and it's hard to ignore them when discussing the mechanic.
The retroactive problem with links is that they were mostly designed based off the fact that their link arrows had inherent value by existing. Without that having any value now its very apparent that design was unhealthy in the longterm. It also deprived the mechanic of a strong identity of its own. There should have been more focus on design around co-linking and zone pointing for it's own mechanical cohesion. It's like if they made XYZs, but detaching was an oddity and not the standard mechanical identity.
Wait, It's beef with Swordsoul for skirting a summoning mechanic's limitations but Spright is cool, fun and creative? 🤨
I have no issue with either but that seems strange to me
Every spright doesn't just generate another 2 when they hit the board. You still have to summon real cards in your deck instead of just getting material from the aether. I don't like that every Swordsoul is a synchro by itself. It's kind of a tell by Konami that synchros design does too much right now, so instead of finding a solution for that, just ignore how the mechanic functions entirely. Like it isn't a good look for the mechanic if Swordsoul is probably the most strong and reasonable synchro deck design wise, and it's in part because it doesn't bother with tuners.
@@RenegadeRedoer but every Swordsoul doesn't just generate a monster by itself either. Same way you need a lvl 2 on board to make the Sprights live, you need a Wyrm/Swordsoul to discard, reveal or banish to make the synchro. A lone Swordsoul in hand into an empty board generates nothing, similar to a lone Spright in the same situation.
Also I don't see how using tuner tokens isn't a valid solution. Konami saw a problem and made a fix that isn't free because you have to fulfill a condition using "real cards" to do it. Easy on turn 1, not so much on turn 3. Spright is literally using Link-2s to XYZ summon, something that would sound just as absurd to someone in 2019 summoning mechanic wise as tuner tokens. These are both creative design elements that add new card synergies (the non-effect benefits of including Tenyis and now every good historically underserved level 2 works together) while having clear limitations that the respective decks good in their time and not absolutely busted.
Just tryna peel back the distaste
I don't genuinely despise Swordsoul, I just don't like it when Konami designs archetypes that ignore/skip a fundamental aspect of a mechanic without it being used to accomplish something interesting. Synchro summoning a monster isn't interesting. Designing XZs that have additional effects when there's a link 2 as material makes it feel like it's actually a more realized gimmick in the archetype, and less of skipping rules because. When it comes to Swordsoul tokens, it's Tenyi that yields the unique interactions with that as a mechanical difference. I would like to see future Swordsoul support if ever there is any, do more to make it feel like the tuners being tokens means something in the deck beyond shortcutting the synchro process.
@@RenegadeRedoer @RenegadeRedoer you're right it's the Tenyis that provide unique interactions but when Swordsoul were being designed, there were only like 2 other good groups of wyrm monsters in existence. Konami definitely designed them with the Tenyis in mind, so it's not random synergy that this deck uses non-effect monsters. And the link XYZ material for Spright *is* skirting the rules because it's something you can't inherently do via the XYZ mechanic's, it's only possible because the Gigantic specifically says so.
I agree it'd be interesting to get more support where the token tuners mean something but what would that even look like? Maybe something that makes other Swordsouls tuners. Still, every good tuner in the game's history simply makes synchro summons easier, more available or more consistent, and the tokens do just that. Feels more like an evolved streamlining of process rather than any normal summon can always make Drident. You still need a tuner and non tuner, you still have to count stars, you still have to play tuners or resolve effects to special them or you're cooked, just our always. Different start point, same process and result
Designing cards that provide some sort of additional effect or benefit using non effect monsters, or by having a non effect in grave (Tenyi vanilla links), going beyond just the tokens. Would also be nice to see cards that do more while you have a non effect (token). Like a card that does something useful in general, but gives the deck more leverage when used while you control a non effect.
I keep forgetting how underexplored Wyrms have been. It does mean Swordsoul has implications for the typing going forward and I'm not too big on typings becoming just a pile of the best cards with the same type. Though it falls on Konami to actually start printing more Wyrm archetypes in the first place.
Well the easy solution for broken cards is "must use nornal summoned vanilla monster". Non special only normal summons
Sunseed genius locy is fucking normal monster in the game after exodia parts.
It is kinda funny. MY friend who just got into the game wanted to see how our decks compared and he couldn't wrap his head around my pendulum cards.
Pendulum as a mechanic is probably the least intuitive to pickup. Simply because of all the design oddities. Every mechanic has its own stupid unintuitive rulings and design quirks, but pendulum kind of throws you into that immediately. It's my favorite mechanic but Konami really doesn't do it any favors when they write "pendulum (which is... conplicated)" in their beginner product.
@@RenegadeRedoer I know having something like different scales depending on which zone you place them in (as I've seen theorized as being a canceled idea given the dual colouration, plus it seems pretty logical as a possible next step) would've confused people even more, but would it have made Pendulum Scales so much more fun to mess around with.
And also doubled the number of scooped games in automatic simulators when people set the card in the other zone by accident.
Dude literally because of links the game makes sense
Zealantis is a selective war crime who needed better guidelines; Tenyi is the enabler that means I've fought 1,001 Tenyi/Swordsoul mains at locals because it's strong and easy. . .
That being said, Konami needs to bite the bullet, issue like a million clarifications & erratas, then move on. And cleanse reality of I:P & Little Night; the sooner they're purged, the happier I'll be.
Very well said. While I also enjoyed LiveTwins and Tenyi, I gotta say Links ruined the game for me the more I dwelled on them.
Links are basically set up your board keep rid as many as monsters you can use and summon a big boss monster but make sure it takes 30 minutes or 40 minutes to summon every link you need. I play master duel sometimes to enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh i still do but i hate seeing so much link summons in one turn. Yu-Gi-Oh really need a nerf in links
11:42 ????? But this is literally an extra layer added to decision making
Best video that shows why links are to broken