It's time to D-D-D-D-DDDDUEL

[Princess Ana]

yo before they become 5 billion dollars from the beetrooper hype anyone got a kwagar hercules they wanna trade

[Doppleganger]

I've been doing research on isekai artists and one posted some example artwork that looks reeeeally suspiciously like Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. So, I think I've found one of the artists who submits for YGO in Japan, which is uncredited usually: Kochimo, artist for Isekai Ryouridou.

[Princess Ana]

I just wanted to pop in and plug a Yu-Gi-Oh that I've been binging for a couple of weeks now: YGO History. It's a channel by former pro player Joe Giorlando and has a ton of really cool videos on past decks from formats as recent as HAT format to around 2006. They're really informative and well-thought out videos from someone who played during those formats and did well at big events. Even just following along with the duels has kind of shown me still what a...difference in skill can really look like and how much I want to learn about the game.

(Also color my surprise when I found out that Dark Worlds...the deck I ran for fun all those years back, actually won YCS Long Beach. Crazy to think about Dark Worlds winning in a format of Dino Rabbit and Wind-Ups and me picking up the deck with literally no idea how good it was.)

[Doppleganger]

I've looked at a lot of those channels but none really have the comprehensiveness of, say, Smogon University + False Swipe Gaming. And unlike VGC and Smogon tournaments that reward skill and creativity, you generally have to play meta in YGO now, at least since the Pendulum Format with scripture getting printed on every card now.

Also, since there's so much luck and dollar involved I don't think pro playing or even topping is a major prerequisite for talking abut competitive, compared to other games. Maybe that's the reason YGO is also overlooked for advanced statistical analysis; perceived as for kids, for weebs, or for the rich, with no cash prizes to incentive pro players committing to it.

This thread alone is a pretty remarkable piece of YGO history, as it chronicles just when the game became inaccessible to casual players.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

I've looked at a lot of those channels but none really have the comprehensiveness of, say, Smogon University + False Swipe Gaming. And unlike VGC and Smogon tournaments that reward skill and creativity, you generally have to play meta in YGO now, at least since the Pendulum Format with scripture getting printed on every card now.

So, there's kind of two points here that I want to disagree on, the first being the extent that VGC rewards creativity more than YGO does, and the extent that meta feels mandatory to play in YGO at any point over another.

On the first, I feel like anecdotes like Pachirisu paint a much rosier picture of the average state of VGC than people realize. Yeah, I will say that I think VGC is pretty competitive (better than the absolute joke that is Smogon), but there's also a really clear centralization focus in VGC. It's pretty common for teams to be the four same Pokemon with some odd tech choices. That doesn't make VGC bad! But VGC also heavily trends towards meta over casual creativity, as does any game as it gets more and more competitive. If you're playing at the big boy tables in VGC, you're going to be playing against meta teams all the time, for whatever that means for any VGC format.

Yes, you do get stuff like Pachirisu, which was a surprising and decent meta call, but those still happen in YGO to this day and Pachirisu did not see a long stint of success (iirc it was only one tournament).

As I've learned more and more about YGO's history...I've started to jive less and less with the idea that YGO in its current form is notably worse in many aspects to older YGO. I think its a lot faster than before, and that is I think up to player preference and not everyone wants to play in fast formats but...

YGO went through 8 months of TeleDAD not only being the best deck, but the only deck that was really worth playing, and a deck that was probably worth $1500+. There was an entire stint in YGO where Crush Card Virus was $200-$300, and that was when it was accessible. X-Sabers dominated an entire year of YGO's meta. Pot of Duality was insanely expensive and a mandatory 3-of in many decks on release, and to bring this to the next point...

Also, since there's so much luck and dollar involved I don't think pro playing or even topping is a major prerequisite for talking abut competitive, compared to other games. Maybe that's the reason YGO is also overlooked for advanced statistical analysis; perceived as for kids, for weebs, or for the rich, with no cash prizes to incentive pro players committing to it.

This kind of bugs me because I've played enough YGO at this point, and in person as well, to realize when someone is genuinely better than me. The game is probably the most affordable it's even been thanks to a pretty aggressive reprint schedule and yeah, it's still kind of expensive. But part of playing in a long tournament like a YCS is to even out game to game and match to match luck and...to inevitably highlight skilled players.

Strictly speaking, there are no statements here that don't apply to pretty much every other TCG in existence: to Magic, to Pokemon, to Cardfight Vanguard, to Weiss Schwarz for the like six people that play that. Games are going to depend on luck, decks are going to depend on what cards you can reasonably put in. Not everyone is genuinely happy with the directions that Magic has gone in or the Pokemon TCG but its rare that those games field the criticisms that no one actually ever gets good at them.

This thread alone is a pretty remarkable piece of YGO history, as it chronicles just when the game became inaccessible to casual players.

This is pretty true, but it also kind of highlights the extent that the community was insulated from competitive play. Hell, if you go back to like, the very early posts here, you can find stuff like this

As has been said in the TO, I played a cliche Burn deck years ago, then switched to Nurse Burn for a while. After that came trying out other cards that people who follow the meta like a religion said I was retarded for using just because they were anti-meta. That lead to my extreme disdain for meta and my quitting the game.

or posts complaining about Gladiator Beasts four years after Light of Destruction. I don't know if this really was a good thing at the end of the day, I feel like I only truly got better by trying to learn and play what was good, against other good decks. I mean I was playing Shaddolls after they first came out, and I mean, they were easily meta for a couple of years past release.

As time went on I just took people leaving the game as leaving for their own reasons. People grow out of it, or they want to ride or die a deck and it's no longer particularly powerful. I'm sure at some point there will be another casual renaissance...hell there was one in Wind-Up Hunter loop format, I'm genuinely not sure it can get much worse than that.

EDIT: Also I just think the channel is cool lol this doesn't have to be about our current feelings on the Roman Republic

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Emi

On the first, I feel like anecdotes like Pachirisu paint a much rosier picture of the average state of VGC than people realize. Yeah, I will say that I think VGC is pretty competitive (better than the absolute joke that is Smogon), but there's also a really clear centralization focus in VGC. It's pretty common for teams to be the four same Pokemon with some odd tech choices. That doesn't make VGC bad! But VGC also heavily trends towards meta over casual creativity, as does any game as it gets more and more competitive. If you're playing at the big boy tables in VGC, you're going to be playing against meta teams all the time, for whatever that means for any VGC format.

Tech and EV investment is what I consider creative though. Players are planning to flip the script on a specific matchup. Sure there is less diversity on the team level, but everything else up to the actual gameplay requires some micro management.

YGO isn't like that. It's very flowchart-y with committee-designed strategies centralized around archetypes. Players used to invent meta decks; that hasn't been true since Dragon Rulers or arguably PePe.

Originally Posted by Emi

As I've learned more and more about YGO's history...I've started to jive less and less with the idea that YGO in its current form is notably worse in many aspects to older YGO. I think its a lot faster than before, and that is I think up to player preference and not everyone wants to play in fast formats but...

YGO went through 8 months of TeleDAD not only being the best deck, but the only deck that was really worth playing, and a deck that was probably worth $1500+. There was an entire stint in YGO where Crush Card Virus was $200-$300, and that was when it was accessible. X-Sabers dominated an entire year of YGO's meta. Pot of Duality was insanely expensive and a mandatory 3-of in many decks on release, and to bring this to the next point...

We played during the golden age, after Tele-DAD and Plant Synchro but before every card had a float effect. The diversity in deck and tech choices during that 2010-2013 era was remarkable. Players didn't have to run floodgates that completely lock out the opponent. Chaos Dragons could get stonewalled by Gustos.

These days, the idea of a weak archetype deck would be Dragonmaid. That's "weak", tier 3 non-competitive!

I certainly think that YGO during the era of Frognarchs was probably not that good. Simpler and slower, certainly. But at least Frognarchs was easy for new players to get into!

Originally Posted by Emi

This kind of bugs me because I've played enough YGO at this point, and in person as well, to realize when someone is genuinely better than me. The game is probably the most affordable it's even been thanks to a pretty aggressive reprint schedule and yeah, it's still kind of expensive. But part of playing in a long tournament like a YCS is to even out game to game and match to match luck and...to inevitably highlight skilled players.

Skill is all about how well one pilots a deck. I've very skilled with the deck I built an know the percentages and power plays with any hand, but I'm not as familiar with a new meta deck even though I can play at the highest level possible with what I know.

So a player outplaying you with the same deck either boils down to experience or, in most cases, luck. Hax plays a much bigger role in YGO than in Pokemon although maybe that's going away with all the searching going on now. In an all-search format winning then falls on the initial dice roll and what hand traps the second-turn player managed to pull in the opening draw.

Originally Posted by Emi

Strictly speaking, there are no statements here that don't apply to pretty much every other TCG in existence: to Magic, to Pokemon, to Cardfight Vanguard, to Weiss Schwarz for the like six people that play that. Games are going to depend on luck, decks are going to depend on what cards you can reasonably put in. Not everyone is genuinely happy with the directions that Magic has gone in or the Pokemon TCG but its rare that those games field the criticisms that no one actually ever gets good at them.

*points to EDH*

I don't know about other games, but YGO's problem is the Advanced format is essentially MTG Legacy, necessitating ever-increasing power creep to push new product and using the banlist when creep alone fails. But the sheer number of broken things available means that casual players looking for a simple game need meta to not get blown out by old meta.

But unlike MTG that has Standard and Modern, there's a culture around YGO that anyone who doesn't play Advanced sucks or is a baby. So despite being an anime game advertised to children it's increasingly inaccessible to them, and that's why you get the criticisms against YGO specifically.

Originally Posted by Emi

This is pretty true, but it also kind of highlights the extent that the community was insulated from competitive play. Hell, if you go back to like, the very early posts here, you can find stuff like this

or posts complaining about Gladiator Beasts four years after Light of Destruction. I don't know if this really was a good thing at the end of the day, I feel like I only truly got better by trying to learn and play what was good, against other good decks. I mean I was playing Shaddolls after they first came out, and I mean, they were easily meta for a couple of years past release.

I consider the player toxicity distinct from the card toxicity. Gladiator Beasts were indeed a challenge for a lot of us since we had underpowered decks and I think Glads were the first "true" meta archetype, since it carried the Counter Trap War Chariot.

But those formats, I remember a lot of diversity in the late Synchro/early XYZ era, before Rescue Rabbit and after the Trishula ban. Where Tour Guide into Wind-Up Zenmaity was a power play.

Originally Posted by Emi

EDIT: Also I just think the channel is cool lol this doesn't have to be about our current feelings on the Roman Republic

Well, it's just my musing on why such things are rare or not that good. Nobody really takes YGO that seriously, not compared to people who actually make a living off playing Pokemon ROMs on YouTube. YGO was looking like a mighty fine alternative to Pokemon circa 2013 when XY came out with Megas. Now would be a good time for a viable Pokemon alternative.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Tech and EV investment is what I consider creative though. Players are planning to flip the script on a specific matchup. Sure there is less diversity on the team level, but everything else up to the actual gameplay requires some micro management.

YGO isn't like that. It's very flowchart-y with committee-designed strategies centralized around archetypes. Players used to invent meta decks; that hasn't been true since Dragon Rulers or arguably PePe.

I think this is only true to an extent and it sort of depends on the deck. Stuff like Drytron is...yeah pretty by the books with the most innovation happening because of the release of Diviner of the Herald, but there have been a ton of innovation in a lot of decks. Probably most notably Tri-Brigade having seen a myriad of different builds (including Bird Up, my favorite of the bunch) but this has also been true of decks like Dinosaur, Phantom Knights, or the fair different versions of Dragon Link.

It can be a bit hard to see sometimes...in part because YGO has just decided to get less creative with deck naming as a whole but especially for a deck that stays around for a while, you can see a ton of innovation over a period of time.

We played during the golden age, after Tele-DAD and Plant Synchro but before every card had a float effect. The diversity in deck and tech choices during that 2010-2013 era was remarkable. Players didn't have to run floodgates that completely lock out the opponent. Chaos Dragons could get stonewalled by Gustos.

These days, the idea of a weak archetype deck would be Dragonmaid. That's "weak", tier 3 non-competitive!

I think personally the format only really got good for HAT at the very minimum, and HAT was, in retrospect, a really good format. But it's hard to look at a format like March 2013 and go "yeah you could play casual decks and just accept you always lost to double Dracossack". I also think the neutered Wind-Up / Rabbit / Inzektor days were probably pretty good?

I certainly think that YGO during the era of Frognarchs was probably not that good. Simpler and slower, certainly. But at least Frognarchs was easy for new players to get into!

I assume this means like, the era of Frog FTK / X-Sabers / Infernity? Yeah. Yeah. It's not looked back fondly on lol.

Skill is all about how well one pilots a deck. I've very skilled with the deck I built an know the percentages and power plays with any hand, but I'm not as familiar with a new meta deck even though I can play at the highest level possible with what I know.

So a player outplaying you with the same deck either boils down to experience or, in most cases, luck. Hax plays a much bigger role in YGO than in Pokemon although maybe that's going away with all the searching going on now. In an all-search format winning then falls on the initial dice roll and what hand traps the second-turn player managed to pull in the opening draw.

I will probably say that's true for VGC since VGC tends to be really short (although Rock Slide lmao) but I don't know how true it's been for YGO as a whole. It's very easy I think to look at one game and go "yeah my opponent drew better" and understand that's maybe why you lost, but over a match and over a longer tournament I think that becomes less and less true. I do also believe that luck in YGO is manageable and arguably controllable, that the greatest panacea to luck in YGO is just good deckbuilding and testing, while in Pokemon luck is completely independent of anything you can reasonably do.

But unlike MTG that has Standard and Modern, there's a culture around YGO that anyone who doesn't play Advanced sucks or is a baby. So despite being an anime game advertised to children it's increasingly inaccessible to them, and that's why you get the criticisms against YGO specifically.

So this is actually becoming rapidly untrue and it's probably thanks to the lockdown that this is the case (and I think was partly the result of just shitty GOAT fans lmao). There was a really unique combination of factors, but mainly

1) people staying at home suddenly having a lot more time on their hands to play YGO
2) The format being Adamancipator and combo Eldlich and genuinely kind of sucking ass
3) No physical play thanks to The Virus meant that there wasn't a strong incentive for people to play the current format
4) Konami throwing their hands in the air and refusing to hit the format because it wasn't seeing physical play

So a lot of previous formats are seeing a rebirth of playings, from GOAT format to Reaper to Edison format. I think this is a good thing that this is changing!

I consider the player toxicity distinct from the card toxicity. Gladiator Beasts were indeed a challenge for a lot of us since we had underpowered decks and I think Glads were the first "true" meta archetype, since it carried the Counter Trap War Chariot.

Whether or not it was Gyzarus or War Chariot I think the point was kind of more "what is new is old" and that people have been complaining about this kind of stuff for ages I feel like. I think a lot of the reason we remember that era fondly is because we played amongst ourselves and the idea of using simulators in order to playtest hadn't caught on yet (and personally, I don't think it really did until YGOPro came out). So you know back in March 2013, if any of us had been going to physical tournaments, we'd have been trounced, losing to a meta that was literally just Dragon Ruler and Spellbook and way above anything we were playing at the time. But in Dueling Network you maybe ran into Dragon Ruler only about 25% of the time, which meant you had a bizarrely diverse format where people played whatever (and Dark Worlds were very strong lol).

But those formats, I remember a lot of diversity in the late Synchro/early XYZ era, before Rescue Rabbit and after the Trishula ban. Where Tour Guide into Wind-Up Zenmaity was a power play.

Yeah and this was true actually from what I know! Tengu Plant format was generally considered pretty good, and I imagine since you tended to play TCG/OCG, you probably had a little time to get used to a deck like Wind-Ups (although without Zenmaity, that came after Rescue Rabbit) before the release of TCG Exclusives like Evolzar Dolkka or Wind-Up Shark.

Well, it's just my musing on why such things are rare or not that good. Nobody really takes YGO that seriously, not compared to people who actually make a living off playing Pokemon ROMs on YouTube. YGO was looking like a mighty fine alternative to Pokemon circa 2013 when XY came out with Megas. Now would be a good time for a viable Pokemon alternative.

I feel like we've been seeing a renaissance of YGO lately: we're starting to return to the days of like, household meta names, the modern Jesse Kotton vs the older Billy Brake, we're seeing generally pretty large turn-out...before COVID. lmao.

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Emi

I think this is only true to an extent and it sort of depends on the deck. Stuff like Drytron is...yeah pretty by the books with the most innovation happening because of the release of Diviner of the Herald, but there have been a ton of innovation in a lot of decks. Probably most notably Tri-Brigade having seen a myriad of different builds (including Bird Up, my favorite of the bunch) but this has also been true of decks like Dinosaur, Phantom Knights, or the fair different versions of Dragon Link.

It can be a bit hard to see sometimes...in part because YGO has just decided to get less creative with deck naming as a whole but especially for a deck that stays around for a while, you can see a ton of innovation over a period of time.

I dunno what tech YGO is running now but my perception of it is it's much less creative than what I'd expect in VGC.

VGC tech is like, running a lure set for Amoongus because the team is weak to it. Tech in YGO is splashing floodgate or negator control cards, and the decks that are meta are the ones that can get their power plays off with the reduced deck space needed to accommodate the meta hate.

So this isn't customizing a Pokemon within a team to deal with a specific threat. This is picking a team based on how well it can run with the staples needed to ensure you can play the game. Or I guess in Smogon terms, it would be building a team around Lando-T instead of adding Lando last to patch up a needed role.

Originally Posted by Emi

I think personally the format only really got good for HAT at the very minimum, and HAT was, in retrospect, a really good format. But it's hard to look at a format like March 2013 and go "yeah you could play casual decks and just accept you always lost to double Dracossack". I also think the neutered Wind-Up / Rabbit / Inzektor days were probably pretty good?

The Ruler format was actually pretty easy to prepare for given the card pool of the days. At the time people weren't wise to running Macro Cosmos or Maxx "C" in everything so splashable counterplay did exist to level the playing field somewhat.

Originally Posted by Emi

I assume this means like, the era of Frog FTK / X-Sabers / Infernity? Yeah. Yeah. It's not looked back fondly on lol.

I'm thinking before the Synchro era, like GX era after the release of Cyber Dragon. Synchro era was just as cancerous as Zoodiacs, since Royal Oppression was in that format. But by the time we got into the game X-Sabers, Infernity, Blackwings and Sams were all hit.

Originally Posted by Emi

I will probably say that's true for VGC since VGC tends to be really short (although Rock Slide lmao) but I don't know how true it's been for YGO as a whole. It's very easy I think to look at one game and go "yeah my opponent drew better" and understand that's maybe why you lost, but over a match and over a longer tournament I think that becomes less and less true. I do also believe that luck in YGO is manageable and arguably controllable, that the greatest panacea to luck in YGO is just good deckbuilding and testing, while in Pokemon luck is completely independent of anything you can reasonably do.

It's still cookie cutter to me. Everything starts with the meta hate you need to run to not get blown out on turn 1. Then you build the deck around that, finding the optimal ratios. That's why even +0 cards like Upstart Goblin are limited, enough searching can give the turn player some high quality unsearchable cards with enough practice and anticipation.

Originally Posted by Emi

So this is actually becoming rapidly untrue and it's probably thanks to the lockdown that this is the case (and I think was partly the result of just shitty GOAT fans lmao). There was a really unique combination of factors, but mainly

1) people staying at home suddenly having a lot more time on their hands to play YGO
2) The format being Adamancipator and combo Eldlich and genuinely kind of sucking ass
3) No physical play thanks to The Virus meant that there wasn't a strong incentive for people to play the current format
4) Konami throwing their hands in the air and refusing to hit the format because it wasn't seeing physical play

So a lot of previous formats are seeing a rebirth of playings, from GOAT format to Reaper to Edison format. I think this is a good thing that this is changing!

That's cool, but I'm skeptical that will more into wholesale changes in how Konami manages the franchise (fudge 'em). The end result is just depressed sales for the new product and Konami seething.

Originally Posted by Emi

Whether or not it was Gyzarus or War Chariot I think the point was kind of more "what is new is old" and that people have been complaining about this kind of stuff for ages I feel like. I think a lot of the reason we remember that era fondly is because we played amongst ourselves and the idea of using simulators in order to playtest hadn't caught on yet (and personally, I don't think it really did until YGOPro came out). So you know back in March 2013, if any of us had been going to physical tournaments, we'd have been trounced, losing to a meta that was literally just Dragon Ruler and Spellbook and way above anything we were playing at the time. But in Dueling Network you maybe ran into Dragon Ruler only about 25% of the time, which meant you had a bizarrely diverse format where people played whatever (and Dark Worlds were very strong lol).

Yeah and this was true actually from what I know! Tengu Plant format was generally considered pretty good, and I imagine since you tended to play TCG/OCG, you probably had a little time to get used to a deck like Wind-Ups (although without Zenmaity, that came after Rescue Rabbit) before the release of TCG Exclusives like Evolzar Dolkka or Wind-Up Shark.

Well it says a lot about that 2012 format that Gladiator Beasts were a challenge. As I said earlier all the nasty meta decks from the Synchro era were still hit, BLS was still banned, and a lot of the trap cards were limited to 1. So the power level was so low even an old meta deck with a consistent card advantage loop was frustrating to beat. Basically a Whitney's Miltank of that era.

I won't apologize for being salty because literally all other decks like that (except at a higher power) were limited by the banlist, and XYZs were still novelty cards.

And I played both Dragon Ruler and Spellbooks quite a bit. Yeah it sucked, but mostly because there weren't splashable answers to Spellbook of Judgment or LADD. The format that came after, the Shaddoll - Burning Abyss - Tellarknight format, was much better, and the best format for me was the one with Qli, since I had an amazing matchup against them with access to Dark Law (which would have been godly against Dragon Rulers and Spellbooks had it been available).

By a similar token my deck was playable as recently as Thunder Dragon Colossus being legal. Please come back baby.

Originally Posted by Emi

I feel like we've been seeing a renaissance of YGO lately: we're starting to return to the days of like, household meta names, the modern Jesse Kotton vs the older Billy Brake, we're seeing generally pretty large turn-out...before COVID. lmao.

The game needs another meta nuke. The first one was really good. Let's do that again.

[Doppleganger]

New F&L? My deck is still deader than dead town. But apparently HFD has been unbanned. About time.

[Princess Ana]

Feather has been unbanned for I think two lists now, maybe three.

Thie big unhits this round seem to be Destrudo, Snow, and E-Tele.

[Doppleganger]

It's a pity, Psychic End Punisher, Geomath Mech and Kyubi Shenshen are almost good enough to be end stage bosses, although they still fall short of Blazar and Stardust.

With Allure at 3 I really need Colossus to be unbanned soon lol

[Princess Ana]

There's also the Stellar Wind Wolfrayet as another good Synchro monster. I don't really know how good Stardust is in this format right now though.

[Doppleganger]

Dueling Book introduced a "Solo" mode which is way overdue, as it allows the player to test out the different combinations.

Thunder Dragon Colossus is still an amazingly consistent play, however the routes into Hyper Librarian aren't as consistent. What I usually end up with is a field of Thunder Dragon Colossus, Vanity's and Infinite Impermanence, which would be stupid strong back in 2014 but doesn't cut it now.

Still a glaring need for Level 9, Level 11 and Level 7 bosses. Also something that runs on 2+ tuners.

[Princess Ana]

There's Crystron Quariongandrax but that's not really a boss monster, more of a board breaker. Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys is also an option.

If you can tweak to 10 there's always Baronne de Fleur. There might also potentially be a Cupid Pitch combo that's possible, I am not entirely sure.

[Doppleganger]

What I need:

-a powerful Link monster that can be summoned with 2 Effect Monsters, 2 Level 8, 2 DARK Monsters
-a powerful rank 8 XYZ

I don't know the current meta, but the game has the same chokepoints, so I'm guessing a field of Deck Lockdown + Thunder Dragon Colossus + Solemn Judgment will defeat even the strongest meta. Barring that, Winda + Dark Law can also shut down decks, with trap support:



Still has a weakness to Raigeki and HFD, but I didn't trigger Nibiru here. Worst case scenario is the new Magicalized Fusion gets cucked by Called.

But the flip side is this didn't use Synchro at all...it was basically a generic Dark deck with two low level engines glued together.

[Doppleganger]

This is probably the best setup I could get, we have three routes going from Hyper Librarian:

-Synchro 8 with Tatsunoko, Librarian = Stardust Dragon
-Synchro 6 with Tatsunoko, Shaddoll Hedgehog = Coral Dragon
-Synchro 9 with Tatsunoko, Thunder Dragonroar = ???

The possible futures:

Spoiler: show

The problem is that this field, while resistant to Raigeki, HFD and summon effects, is weak to something like Book of Eclipse or Dark Ruler No More.

It looks to me like what's needed:

-A Shaddoll Fusion similar to Miracle Fusion, since that combos with Winda's recycling ability
-A stronger Level 6, 8, or 11 Synchro monster
-Some kind of Link that gives better field presence

[Doppleganger]

I overlooked that Shooting Star T.G. monster. Even during my 2020 experiments before the Colossus ban, I never seriously looked at it. But lookie lookie, it's the new boss of my deck. How ironic that this deck started out as a Shooting Star spam deck and now Shooting Star is the centerpiece of it again!

Why is a complex story. It begins with this field:



MMM can summon back a Level 3, 2 or 1 Tuner. What does one shoot for?

Going Level 2 makes for a pretty routine Blazar summon, but as I learned several years ago facing that ABC deck, one negate isn't enough anymore. Modern decks poop out +2 advantage per card so even with 4 field negates, it's possible to still lose. There's also weakpoints, Blazar is vulnerable to kaijus and traps are vulnerable to Red Reboot. That's a two card board buster leaving 4 to vomit out its own big board with the highly efficient meta mint.

So the best option then is to draw into my defense, the solemns, vanity, veilers and the floodgate fusions. That means SYNCHRO SPAM, but how many can one make off this setup? At least, without relying on something like Jet Synchron? The answer is 4, which actually leads to 5 draws due to the effect of Coral Dragon.



Shooting Star EX is the most powerful generic boss. This is a pretty good field at first blush, but there's no follow-up. If the board is broken there's little way to make a recovery, even with top decks. So maybe we should call it an average field. Is there a way to do better?

Maybe. MMM has a strange effect that a Synchro summoned using it as materials is treated as a Tuner. In the past, this was something of a nuisance for me, but that's where EX comes into play.

See, there's a very old card from the tail-end of the 5D's era called T.G. Recipro Dragonfly. I used it briefly as a double-aught n00b to get to Quasar, using Formula and Recipro Dragonfly to get 12 levels. I barely mentioned it in this thread because it was pretty useless:

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

At this point, I had Stardust, Formula Synchron, and a token. If I had a DD Sprite, I could have banished Formula Synchron, then tuned a TG Recipro Dragon. During the SBP of Chaotic's next turn, Accel Synchro to Shooting Quasar Dragon.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Also, something weird came up - in one of my duels last night against BBB, I had a Stardust Dragon, TG Recipro Dragonfly and Formula Synchron out. I go to my Extra deck to summon Shooting Quasar Dragon...

The funny thing about Recipro Dragonfly, in the anime it was used to defuse T.G. Blade Blaster to recreate the materials to summon T.G. Halberd Cannon. But in the real game, it was useless, since it doesn't combo with Halberd Cannon's own float ability and T.G. Blade Blaster is useless to summon.

Wouldn't you know it though, Shooting Star Dragon T.G.
EX is a "T.G." monster.
So it's a valid target - no, the perfect target for this old, useless card.

And then the pieces fall into place.

Synchro Summon Garden Rose Maiden with MMM, which turns her into a tuner. Synchro Summon Recipro Dragonfly with the Level 1 tuner summoned via MMM's effect. Synchro Summon EX, then immediately defuse it with Recipro Dragonfly. This effectively dumps a properly summoned EX into the graveyard. 2 draws.

From here, there are options.



Maybe the worst play is a +1 into Crystal Wing or Stardust Dragon. This is a lot better than the 'average' field. Colossus and Deck Lockdown limit the tutoring, basically forcing the opponent to rely on the Normal Summon, which can be dealt with by Crystal Wing, Effect Veiler or Solemn Judgment. Any monster effects attempting to negate Colossus are stopped by EX, there's too many bosses to deflate with kaijus, Dark Ruler No More is handled by Solemn Judgment, Colossus and/or Stardust Dragon would be resistant to mass destruction. There's many different obstacles here that require a fortunate tech draw, and this isn't even the power play.



This a much scarier field. A +2 into Blazar with EX is even more resistant to board breakers, and unlike the earlier boards this one has some longevity to it, as Blazar, Colossus and EX resist destruction somewhat (EX less so). Also any opponent can never actually attack me with all the BP negation so the Solemns won't be an issue here.

Yet, I feel like there was still more untapped potential here. A 9 star Synchro could keep Librarian on the field. A proper 7 star tuner would have been a +4 on draws, perhaps lucking into Dark Law. If Ancient Fairy Dragon were still around I could have made use of the dead Hanewata and Shaddoll Beast in hand. There's still uncharted routes out there.

Although I think all of them will have Shooting Star Dragon T.G. EX (whew) star in some capacity. It's a poor man's Crystal Wing, so badly designed and with its archetypes haphazardly glued together, it's perfect.

[Princess Ana]

I do also want to mention there is also the Junk Speeder combo focused decks too, they've gotten quite a bit better with more labbing

[Doppleganger]

Junk Speeder, Halqifibrax, Quickdraw and basically most Synchron decks are a divergent genealogy from me even if they share some of the same core cards. Really, the differences are the cards they choose to include. My mindset has been shaped by competing against the top meta decks of the format rather than pure consistency of plays. And I do run two Junk Synchron now, he's not THAT essential.

That Cyber Dragon deck made me smile. Just ONE CydraInfinity and two II? I had to deal with ABC, Cyber Dragon Infinity, and Apollusa! I was so traumatized, I usually don't remember individual duels, but oh I remember that one. I also remember the one where I spammed Solemn Judgments against Orcust World Chalice and lost.

2020, what a hilariously forgettable yet memorable year.

Synchro Overtake is neat tech but requires situational Synchros that I don't run. I don't really have issues drawing Junk Synchron anyway, the Plan A is usually Thunder Dragon Colossus. The win condition are the Synchros, but I've been perfectly able to drop say:

Thunder Dragon Colossus
Masked HERO Dark Law
Solemn Judgment x 2

Opposing Synchrocentric can't do anything to that. Heck, Ghost Ogre and Effect Veiler are both cockblocked by Dark Law anyway, where is Nibiru?

[Doppleganger]

Well I found the "power play", which is to say I rediscovered it, since I distinctly remember playing with this combo circa 2017-2018 when Firewall Dragon was legal. You need to summon two Hyper Librarian and just spam high level dragons from there. I think the main deck is more or less complete, the tricky part is getting the right formulation for the Extra and what the optimum board looks like.

I also reviewed an old version of my deck from October 2014, when Soul Charge was at 1. This was before the "new" Synchron support from the Synchron Extreme structure deck later that year, and the deck is hilariously impotent compared to now. I mean, at the time, it was pretty good! I was already starting to tech in Shaddolls which was only a few months after DUEA. But I was so starved for Extra Deck monsters I ran x2 Clausolas and x2 Balmung.

There was literally nothing! Although, some historical context is needed. Clausolas, Dark Diviner and Balmung were important Synchro answers to Evilswarm Ophion, which was a massive annoyance in that era. One couldn't summon big enough monsters to kill Ophion, so it was necessary to use Clausolas to zero out its attack or use Dark Diviner to just run it over. Forbidden Lance also came out as a damage step answer to Infestation Pandemic. Later, Breakthrough Skill became a convenient way to deal with Ophion (and Herald).

I actually lost using my modern deck to Ophion in 2020 because I had no main deck answers to Ophion. Which is a bit odd since I should have at least had Shaddoll Dragon and Shaddoll Squamata? Eh.

[Doppleganger]

I played a guy who didn't have a very competitive deck, but I was able to chew through his backrow.



Dark Dimension Soldier > Garden Rose Maiden

[Doppleganger]

I combed through the generics and got a definitive list of usable Synchros:

Level 6

Muddy Mudragon
Coral Dragon

Level 7

Black Rose Moonlight
Clear Wing
Deep Sea Primadona
F.A Dawn Dragster
Rampaging Smashtank Rhynosaber
Yazi

Level 8

Adamancipator Risen - Dragite
Stardust Dragon
Omega
Chaos Ruler
Draco Berserker Tenyi

Level 9

Shenshen

Level 10

Baronne de Fleur

Level 11

Psychic End Punisher

Level 12

Final Sigma

Tuner Synchro

White Aura Bihamut

2 Tuners

Tyrant Red Dragon Archfiend

...

If I'm not mistaken, I can contact fusion something like Dark Cavalry with Muddy Mudragon + Doppel Token, right?

[Doppleganger]

Dragite is the best of the bunch in my experimentation.



I found a stable loop, finally, and have a set number of plays. It isn't without drawbacks though. Pot of Desires is devastating for me and puts me close to a deck out. I didn't use it in that duel, but had I done so, I'd only be 3 cards from losing (although I would have tried to OTK on turn 3 anyway).

There isn't enough firepower in that lineup to OTK, though. 8900 LP but consider with x3 Upstarts, we're looking at 11000 LP. The deck is exhausted at this point with no more ability for followup if this board is broken.

Also, this deck is with 3 ROTA. I'll need to tweak it to see how it plays under OCG format.

The one card left in the extra is a Level 4 tuner. My deck has two main loops, a "major" loop where Junk Synchro summons a Level 1 Tuner, and a "minor" loop where it summons a Doppelwarrior.

The major loop actually can cycle through the minor loop in its second stage, that is, going through Accel Synchron, but the minor loop requires Accel to send Jet, ending in a field of Librarian + Coral Dragon and a mere +3. On the other hand, it can be accomplished with 2 cards, while the major loop requires 3.

[Doppleganger]

Pardon that embarrassing display earlier. I had stupidly messed up the combo so it was incorrect.



Here, Dragoon is properly summoned. However IMO the field is far less impressive than the earlier one with Dragite. You'd scarce know this was a Synchro deck from the field, and due to the randomness of the draws I only have three active negates in Dragoon and the Solemns.

Since I deleted the previous post, to go over the combo, Muddy Mudragon and Formula Synchron are either a Synchro 8 into Dragite, or a contact Fusion into Albion, who then banishes itself and Muddy Mudragon in the grave to summon Dragoon.

Dragoon and Dragite are more-or-less equivalent, what excited me earlier was the potential for Muddy Mudragon to be summoned by Garden Rose Maiden in the grave, but Muddy's contact fusion ability doesn't work if it isn't Synchro Summoned. So the need for a grave-summonable boss still eludes me.

[Doppleganger]

I think I'm at the end of my creative renaissance. After a week of experimentation I've already arrived at a satisfactory build. It's OCG Advanced legal, but not TCG.



Baroness de Fleur is the strongest generic Level 10, Dragite is the strongest generic Level 8. Roland allows the minor loop to progress on and gives Baroness some more muscle. With three copies of Junk Synchron and zero copies of Unknown Synchron, I mostly solved the Pot of Desires problem (although it still sucks).

There's still issues, a stronger Level 7 is needed than Dawn Dragster. or Prima Donna. There's also inconsistencies as to whether or not Level 7 is an end point or another ladder up. I might end up going back to Yazi, since between Coral, Yazi, and Baroness, that's 3 forms of destruction removal (like Scrap Dragon).

Still, I don't think even today, many decks are going to break that field. That is the actual field I built and not a mock up, although it's now the DP of the opponent's turn and no longer my turn.