(Casual Player) There's Evidently No Place For Me Here. Any Suggetions?

[Auffie]

Title is a realization I've made as a result of hitting the Block List limit for MD. I like experiencing more than 4 gamestates (all of which seem entirely dependant on how many handtraps and/or engines each player has and how "meta" their "totally original, not copy-pasted" deck is), but even in casual modes outside rated/ranked, unless I spend hours going through threads looking for other actually casual players (cringelords who claim to be casual then whip out a tier-0 meta deck for a free stomp don't count), it's nearly impossible to find anyone who's actually playing somethingother than "hyper-optimized to drop a 40+ card FTK/OTK combo on you, flavor this version" that was just in casual to look for players who wouldn't have any handtraps in their decks to potentially get to play literally anything and fight back, resulting in the same "hand trap negate, then sweep or just get swept" repetition as the rated mode sprinkled with a few less instant-surrenders/"connection failures" when I bring in something a bit weaker.

I always assumed the Block list didn't apply to rated, and that was fine by me. I can easily get by on the 20 gem daily login since the gacha system has a duplicate materials system to go with it. There's no reason to go into rated for me, but unfortunately, the way MD's being handled, and with the tiny block list limit, trying to wade through the meta-swamp present in every mode just isn't terribly likely to result in anything new or fun happening. So unless they change it (by which I mean completely un-limit it's size), I guess I'm out. I've had my fun trying to compete in meta until it got kinda boring and repetitive (again, win or lose it's usually one of the same 4 scenarios 90% or more of the time), and I've hit the point where that's just not really fun anymore.

So best wishes to those of you who still enjoy the current system as it is now, but respectfully, for the reasons above and now apparent lack of any way to mitigate them, I'm just not able to justify the daily login anymore. The game's literally become less likely of generating any entertainment for me than winning the lottery (and I don't typically waste time or money on that either lol), not due to "toxicity waaah!!", or "broken archetypes, REEEEEEE!!", but just due to sheer repetition and the fact that yes, just like literally everyone else, my time has value too.

So before I go, does anybody have any games (preferably tabletop/card-based) they recommend/that will last a bit longer than MD without getting overly repetitive?

[IsthisKosher]

Most popular card games at this point fall into similar categories since power creep rises in direct relation to how much a company wants to get paid, so your only real hope in this genre is relatively all pretty indie and/or early.

This is why balanced fighting games are superior :D

People are gonna storm in and insist that you're crazy or that it's your fault you aren't having fun, but just ignore that.

[Merilirem]

I mostly play Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra when not playing this.

Legends of Runeterra doesn't do PVP as its focus anymore though. Its balanced for PVE mode now which I enjoy enough to keep playing. PVP is still there its just not being developed with any kind of focus. So balance might get a bit bad later. Still feels good to me for now.

Hearthstone I mostly just play battlegrounds lol. Its a silly mode.

All my other card games have just fallen to time. I had so many over the years but even the fun ones didn't make it and are gone now or in disrepair. I was going to try out some other ones I forget the name of now but haven't yet.

Anyway if anyone has some recommendations I am always up to try stuff out.

[76561199248577485]

I do have a solution for you, I know a casual facebook group that does Master Duel and they duel each other and even do tournaments. While I don't participate in their events or even duel with them. They might be a bit more of your crowd.

[Papa Shekels]

So you hint at this throughout the post but never explicitly say it, is your problem that you block everybody who played a deck you didn't like and you ran out of space on the blocked list?

As for the suggestions, hearthstone and magic are generally the two brought up for refugees from yugioh. Hearthstone seems to be the better fit to actually differentiate though, as it's more f2p friendly and has its own distinctions while magic is just a different form of the kind of crazy yugioh has and it uses lands to pretend that its pacing is slower. However, from the exaggerations and lumping together in this post, it seems like your issue is not getting to play by your own rules, which is a problem that will follow you into any other card game. Even in slower games or weaker formats, the difference between a casual newbie deck and something an experienced player makes will be large enough to create this same experience. Maybe the differences will be small enough to feel negligible in some kind of draft format (which both hearthstone and MTG have, conveniently enough), but I don't play them enough to say for sure. The only true solution to this is finding some other group of people to play at an agreed level, which is not something that any official matchmaking system in any game can do for you

[Tunnel Sharks Rule!!!]

Wait people actually block others in this game?

[Ohmadon]

Originally posted by Tunnel Sharks Rule!!!:

Wait people actually block others in this game?

I sometimes do, with people who take obnoxiously long turns. Not cause of setting up their board, but literally just sit and wait for nothing.

[¿¡Kloey!?²]

Honestly speaking this is one of the most tame and fair posts I've seen. OP just isn't having fun. Now using the block button as a curation tool for something as benign as an attempt to not play against the same person again when I believe the likelihood of it is slim is another topic all together. To get on to the actual question, are you looking for PVP games or are you looking for any sort of card game to pass the time whether they cost something, single player, roguelike, etc. etc.

[76561199543893354]

Why not just play in Solo mode? No handtraps and minimal negates.

[cybercybercybercyber4]

Originally posted by Auffie:

So before I go, does anybody have any games (preferably tabletop/card-based) they recommend/that will last a bit longer than MD without getting overly repetitive?

im not sure wether i can still convince you to stay, so ill just list games on steam that i can recommend without any doubts, so this is not just every positively rated game, but obviously you need to be open to the genre.

-ff12 zodiac age (cant go wrong with this)
-divinity 2 original sin (cant go wrong with this, if you get stuck just use a guide)
-path of exile (its free and atleast the first playthrough should be fun)
-nioh 2 (if you like some challenge)
-pillars of eternity 2 (i often hear the first is better but i never played that)
-witcher 3 (maybe a bit too easy but its good)
-cross code ( if you like puzzles)

[76561199799805417]

Hmmm , i started MasterDuel 1month ago or something like that and what i can say is this.

1st i didnt play the new rules until now , i came from playing TagForce 1 PsP game for fun and wanted to see the online and how ppl play.

i put myself on the casual player because i didnt play YGO 10 years or 5 reading every ban list and knowing how to play and counter everything based on TCG and MD.

so i tested the game , completed mostly all the first traning matches that make you learn about all these new cards and styles like pendulum Xyz link etc.

then for fun droped all the gems on exodia packs , to realize that deck will do nothing on casual or ranked matches because ppl destroy you with same 5 decks from the meta even on casual play.

then made new account with the focus on playing better , with a meta deck like everyone else and not throwing the gems and materials randomly.

choosed Yubel , because since i came from PsP TagForce games i was thinking ok Yubel seems cool i love the card styles.

first day , completed and farmed all the gems from IA matches practice thing until 10k gems
second day , started to craft SR cards with the reddit guide for free packs that let you open arround 30 or more Free packs with crafting and uncrafting things.

after all that done , i focused on purchasing those Gem packs for the handtraps , then secret packs for Yubel and droped all gems on making the Yubel deck i liked the most.

3rd day i had allready full Meta Deck with cool cards and even Field and few cosmetics.

learned how to counter meta decks , tenpai , lab , yubels and learned whats the weakness on my deck.

Started to have fun like 5-0 in duels on ranked.

so you can be new player with the new rules and have fun with a Free to play account in 3 days you will have atleast 1 meta deck arround 800-900ur , so if you choose tenpai i guess it will take a bit more grinding on gems since its arround 1100ur or so.

but still i dont think its hard to play , not P2W because you could do the same thing with 3 o 4 accounts and have the decks in different ones but free.

i can agree that the old rules making the turns go by and counter as the game goes is more fun and more casual friendly too , because it wasnt 1 turn otk or 10min combos in 1 turn.


but its new rules you need to adapt to it , if you want a old school YGO xperience just play the Tag Force series on a PsP or emu and enjoy both styles :D

PD: BTW ! i forgot about the other card games, i played Hearstone (feelt p2w af) , MTG like it but its kinda tedious , Gwent the witcher card game its fun for casuals , any other like pokemon tcg etc tested it but the reason i like YGO is the card design like Magic the cards are dope af just even to collect.

i dont know if Tribute ( elder scrolls online ) card game is out of the game , but i also loved to play tribute inside TESO.

So idk , test all the other games , search arround how to start a fresh account with no mistakes throwing the currency into trash cards , then compare all the games.

i can say that i played all of the other games more time that i did play YGO master duel , and i didnt like them as MD , so idk , dont get salty on rankeds , just improve and learn to counter them and thats it have fun , or add friends to the game to play casual matches with them just to laugh a lil.

[Auffie]

So for starters thanks to those who had suggestions, I'll be checking them out and hoping for the best!

As for a fair question;

Originally posted by Papa Shekels:

So you hint at this throughout the post but never explicitly say it, is your problem that you block everybody who played a deck you didn't like and you ran out of space on the blocked list?

In a way I suppose you're not too far off. I started blocking people who were playing the same old meta from ranked in the casual mode so I could find other people who were, you know, actually playing casually when I queued up. I could care less about whether I "liked" the deck they were running at the time, I just crave different interactions besides the 4 or so outlined in my OP, and I wasn't seeing/getting them, so I tried to increase my odds of it happening.

When I hit the cap I realized there's no feasible way for that to happen in casual mode, rendering it kind of a waste of space. The whole reason to even have non-competitive modes as far as I'm aware is to let the two mentalities play separately because power creep and poor matchups are GOING to hamper fun otherwise for at least one if not both groups, but sure enough, every time I went into casual it was the same old same old, right down to the same archetypes like fiendsmith and salamangreat when they were the supposed best. I stopped playing ranked specifically because I'm bored of only ever seeing 4 outcomes i've already seen hundreds (if not thousands) of times, but now it's clear that not only are very few other players interested in seeing that (since I never found any when queuing up), there's also no way to narrow the pool down so that I have a realistic chance of matching them in-game thanks to the list cap (and that's only if the block list even keeps them from matching you in casual lol).

It's a real shame too, it'd be such an easy fix to just uncap the block list and let us match with people who'll actually try something new/different on our own (after all it's not like we'd be hurting anybody by dipping out and letting all the meta copycats have fun trying to outspam eachother, which is still valid fun), but konami's never been known for listening to fans who didn't already agree with whatever agenda/product they're pushing at the time. More solo duels are always fun when they drop, but just like dueling the exact same set of 4 or 5 meta decks/strategies/whatever you wanna call it (but with a different user behind it each time at least) repeatedly, dueling the same set of singleplayer decks gets old fast no matter how many different ideas I try playing against them with.

As a result, like with most YGO videogames I've had the pleasure to try over the years, this one's run out of content and just kinda burnt out/stopped being fun, you know? Ergo, rather than live the definition of insanity by continuing to queue up hoping for a different result that evidently isn't going to happen, I'm doing the one last thing I actually have the power to do in order to have new experiences, and that's to stop coming back here where I've already had all the ones that are realistically available to me.

[Auffie]

Apologies Bartroli, but I've already been in the meta scene and had my fun with it too. this isn't a "waah I can't win!" post, it's a case of having already been there, done that, and wanting to try something actually new instead of playing the "right" or "winning" way centered entirely on either out-comboing or negating then following up with your own.

[Terminal Desolation]

Have you tried the events at all? Sounds like they might be more up your alley, and though you'll likely still encounter a few people playing to the particular event's meta, they will almost always be different compared to ladder (exception is Duelist Cup which is just Ladder 2) and they can be interesting. The No ED event was pretty different as far as strategies go. Yubel still existed, for example, but with no ED they were a going 2nd strategy that relied on running their 0/0s into your guys with Nightmare Pain on field. Otherwise, I didn't see a single deck that is currently tiered in that event.

Casual has a lot of people who are testing out their decks before taking it to the ranked ladder. It's not "casual" as in a casual format, it's "casual" in the sense that it's just not ranked duels. I'm inclined to agree with you that in its current incarnation, it's rather pointless, but by the very nature of being different and sometimes unusual formats, the events are inherently more casual, so they may have more of the gameplay you're looking for.

[Kaulu]

Best of luck finding something you enjoy for your free time. I'm not that big on card games, especially pvp ones, so can't really give much advice there. As some general suggestions I'd say:

Slay the Spire - Deckbuilding rogue-lite that I go back to every few months.
Witchspring R - Alchemy based RPG in a similar sense to the Atelier games. Imo a lot more fun and really cute.
Castle Warriors - Dirt cheap game inspired by old Warcraft 3 custom games. Not too much depth, but it's pretty chill with a good soundtrack.

[Maverick]

i still have my no-combo deck that just utilize odd eye wizard and odd eye arc pendulum as my only plan XD

the game force you to play combo deck to have fun but actually finding people that does wanna just mess around with some no combo deck(pendulum does not have that privilage cause you need link and most link combo into something)

i got force into a deck that goes into votex, baron, apollusa(2 negate) and a Z-arc summon to farm my diamond in rated, cause without it you either gotta try and survive the teppei attack phase combo, negating nebiru, or a annoying but smart build like branded that whole plan is to get servant of ra on your field to stop you from using special summon

if im gonna recomment you a game and you have the money play either

yomi hustle - turn base combat that relay on your decision making
library of ruina - deck building and story driven game with a vertical difficulty curb
or if you like survival
once human - open world survival a mix of ark survival evolve and fall out
V Rising - vampire survival castle building that is VERY fun if you got friend to play with