What do you think defines Yugioh?

[Merilirem]

Felt like asking since I see a lot of people focusing on different things about this game.

So what defines Yugioh to you?

[Merilirem]

For me its the lack of resource system holding back plays. Your cards are all the resources you need

Secondarily is the Extra deck. A evolved later addition but even as the fusion deck it was something unlike other games, at least at the time. It gives you a way to have those big plays without stuffing your deck full of more cards you can't play.

Some people might say combo and the anime are what make Yugioh Yugioh but lots of things have an anime and games like MTG have crazy combo's too. I don't know any game that doesn't have any resources but the cards. Maybe there are games that let you play 1 card per turn that don't but I struggle to think of even those.

Combo's are just a side effect of the way the game is being managed. Even without combo's or an anime Yugioh would still be Duel Monsters. A game where you play cards for free unless they say otherwise and you can bring big monsters out of an extra deck.

[Pastor Shotty McBangJump]

Spectacle is what defines Yugioh imo. It defines it in the anime with the extravagant descriptions of even basic plays, the wacky character designs, and the crazy summoning chants/cinematics. It defines it in the cards with the anime-style art and high attack/defense numbers compared to games like MTG. It defines it in the gameplay with the ability to do almost anything you want, often in a single turn. Massive swings in momentum happen quickly and dramatically, potentially with just a single card being drawn or played.

It's just a very flashy game and franchise. Sure, other games have ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ combos, but Yugioh just has a certain spectacular flair to what you can do within it that no other game has really achieved.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Pastor Shotty McBangJump:

Spectacle is what defines Yugioh imo. It defines it in the anime with the extravagant descriptions of even basic plays, the wacky character designs, and the crazy summoning chants/cinematics. It defines it in the cards with the anime-style art and high attack/defense numbers compared to games like MTG. It defines it in the gameplay with the ability to do almost anything you want, often in a single turn. Massive swings in momentum happen quickly and dramatically, potentially with just a single card being drawn or played.

It's just a very flashy game and franchise. Sure, other games have ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ combos, but Yugioh just has a certain spectacular flair to what you can do within it that no other game has really achieved.

Perhaps. I just don't see a lot of difference compared to something like the Vanguard anime.

[Dinkleberg]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Felt like asking since I see a lot of people focusing on different things about this game.

So what defines Yugioh to you?

Deck building, the fact that so many different archetypes can work well together or older cards get a new purpose is what makes the game interesting. You have so many options and ways how to build your deck and interact with others. To make a deck work that is based on a crazy - "what if i do this..." thought process is the biggest reward.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Dinkleberg:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Felt like asking since I see a lot of people focusing on different things about this game.

So what defines Yugioh to you?

Deck building, the fact that so many different archetypes can work well together or older cards get a new purpose is what makes the game interesting. You have so many options and ways how to build your deck and interact with others. To make a deck work that is based on a crazy - "what if i do this..." thought process is the biggest reward.

That is a good point. While other card games can have softer limits than something with "classes" there isn't really one that has so few limitations to synergy. Even something like MTG requires the prerequisite mana before you even start doing stuff.

[76561199543893354]

The very core card design is just so timeless and well done (aside of link/xyz/synchro stuff). Most of the art, especially earlier stuff is also incredible and just interesting to look at.

As for the gameplay, crazy comebacks and getting surprised - so not exactly stuff that's common anymore.

[John]

The horrendous balancing, obvious cash grabbing, and comically broken card designs

[Papa Shekels]

The obvious answer is the pacing, that there is no arbitrary limit of lands/mana/energy to dictate your turns. But as I've been seeing more of other card games, I feel like it's specifically the way that yugioh deals with the consistency problem of card games. This sort of ties into the pacing, other games force the match to drag out over the course of many turns so that theoretically everybody has a chance to draw into their game plan and any specific outs they need. But each of these still have issues anyway, in yugioh your opening hand being bricked can just mean the end of the game while in others your game can simply end because on turn 8 you bricked on too many/not enough lands or all your high cost cards while your opponent was able to start ramping and gain an unbeatable lead. It's the same inevitable problem of a game founded on luck-based elements, but not many games take the immediate all-or-nothing approach that yugioh does with it where sometimes you can simply compare opening hands and figure out the winner assuming competent/optimal play.

The other obvious part of this is the extra deck - magic has a commander format where you can choose a key part of your strategy to always be available, we get 15 key parts of our strategy always available. In a way, that means you have a 20-card starting hand, but more realistically the ed holds your combo pieces and then various toolbox cards for removal or extension/recursion that will not come up in most of your games. Having these always be available creates a dynamic that no other card game has, because it leaves plenty of room for metagaming around specific matchups while making it less likely for a well-prepared player to be completely blown out with no chance of beating something. It also creates an additional form of "class" distinctions, since often times a deck that uses some kind of summoning mechanic will specialize in just that one, sometimes even locking you out of the others - every other card game has some form of this, but it's not often that you are given the option of either specializing in one or being able to mix and match from as many as you want.

I think the most interesting form though is how they handle the actual consistency of the deck. Since the other games force you to go through many turns to reach a win condition, you have many turns to draw into the pieces of your combos and can take your time assembling everything. They tend to be much easier on drawing and excavating to help you do that more consistently, but it's all kind of left to the law of large numbers where over the course of so many turns with so many options to dig through your deck, you *should* get everything you need. Yugioh kind of tosses this concept out of the window and decides to connect your deck together like beads on a string. You can effectively be playing 15 copies of a card if you have 3 of it, 9 cards that get you to it, and 3 more that get you to one of those 9 things that get you to it. This effectively means many of the cards in your deck are interchangeable, and we see this even in unsearchable cards where hand traps are often roughly serving the same purpose in the decks that play them, often being considered to have their own nonengine slots in a deck. This kind of connection makes draw power so ridiculously powerful here compared to other games, since in a way getting to draw 2 is basically the equivalent of getting to excavate 20 in magic or something

[abdera2020]

"I summon my whole deck into the field"
"Your turn? It's OUR turn!"
"It's a single player game"
"I sure do hope you like Solitaire"
"NEGATE!"

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by abdera2020:

"I summon my whole deck into the field"
"Your turn? It's OUR turn!"
"It's a single player game"
"I sure do hope you like Solitaire"
"NEGATE!"

And the players who, despite hating all of that, think the game changing from what it's been for the past 15 or so years would do anything other than kill it.

[itzRiceKrispies]

For me its the artwork. Yugioh has always had a unique appearance and style.

[Goofy Oomfie]

No resources, interactive play, and ample diversity in aesthetics.

[e-dood]

For better or worse, the pacing.

[G3]

Artstyle and all the nonsense you can do in single turn. And, that some of our worst cards could be good in other games. Everything is a Tudor. Everything is an instant. Everything is free.

Originally posted by Zius:

The horrendous balancing, obvious cash grabbing, and comically broken card designs

Go play a mana game.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by G3:

Artstyle and all the nonsense you can do in single turn. And, that some of our worst cards could be good in other games. Everything is a Tudor. Everything is an instant. Everything is free.

Originally posted by Zius:

The horrendous balancing, obvious cash grabbing, and comically broken card designs

Go play a mana game.

Yeah, Yugioh takes the Syndrome approach to balance: there are so many comically broken cards that it ends up actually providing a decent variety.