Archetypes - why are some cards not part of them?

[Vanythe]

From a "theme" point of view I sort of understand for example why Frog The Jam was not included in the Frog archetype, or cards like Cyber Archfiend that's not part of the Cyber archetype, but what makes no sense are cards like these:

Cyber Saurus - A "Cyber" Lv5 Fusion Machine monster that's not treated as a Cyber card, despite being both a Machine and a Fusion "Cyber" monster.
Cyber Soldier of Darkworld - Another "Cyber" Machine monster that's specifically not in the Cyber archetype.

One might say "Yeah but those obviously don't fit the aesthetic"
True, but then why are these "Cyber" cards allowed? These don't specify that they're NOT in the Cyber archetype?
Cyber Soldier - Lv5 Normal Machine monster
Cyber Commander - Lv2 Normal Machine monster,
Cyber-Tech Alligator - Lv6 Normal Machine monster

Same thing with "HERO" support cards that only call for a Hero card to be played, they do not work on:
Hero of the East - Lv4 Normal Warrior monster
Hero Kid - Lv2 Effect Warrior monster
Oscillo Hero - Lv3 Normal Warrior monster

But you scream at me at the top of your lungs "THESE DONT FIT THE ARCHETYPE THEMATICALLY!"
Maybe that's true for Hero of the East and I agree, but Hero Kid and Oscillo Hero look like they could visually fit with the rest of the "HERO" cards.

Konami even did this with Summoned Skull and Black Skull Dragon which did not have an archetype before but are now in the "Archfiend" archetype.

Makes sense? No. I throw at you a Karakuri Spider which *IS* part of the Karakuri archetype, despite thematically not matching the rest of the Karakuri cards.

What is going on here? Do they just pick cards at random? Would any of these really "break" the archetype if they were allowed, assuming that's the case?

[Lexida]

Noble Knight joan came first before actual noble knights (noble knight spear/shield bearer ew)
Swordsoul Iris came first before the actual swordsouls

Translation probably also has a play a part in here.

[Keeks574]

Correct me if i'm mistaken but isn't that a translation issue
Card names in japan are not always the same in English so officially in the rules most of the cards listed above aren't meant to work in those archetypes except frog the jam all frogs hate jam

[Merilirem]

Basically its a mess Konami isn't eager to tidy up. Not enough to actually accomplish it anyway.

Translations often play a major part and because Konami hasn't done enough housecleaning for older cards and didn't choose to make archetypes initially. Not to mention plenty of similar themes exist as well as continued creation of series and 1 off cards.

What Konami should do is consolidate all the archetypes and cards outside archetypes into solid groupings then merge where possible. This is partially the case with water machines or lv8 monsters who mix in that manner but certain things like Cyber cards should always have worked together. Cyberdarks and Cyber Dragons are an obvious match made in heaven but for some reason Konami hasn't done retrains of the Cyberdarks to make them work with Cyber Dragons instead of low level dragons no one will ever use with them. I get the Cyberdarks had to do with dragons but they could have done that in so many different ways like simply doing an errata to make them target dragon types OR "dragons" by name.

Yugioh is a chaotic game made by a company who doesn't really understand it. Messy card design is just part of the game at this point.

[KenderMystic]

Nine times out of ten, the answer is "the kanji/romanji." What dictates whether or not a card is part of an archetype is if they have the exact same kanji/romanji. For example:

The Cyber cards you listed are not cybers because their japanese names usually mean "Mecha" or "Machine" or, in the case of Cyber-Tech Alligator, "Cybernetic," whose kanji does not translate to "Cyber" due to different writings.

For the HEROs, the Japanese spelling for Elemental HERO, Destiny HERO, etc. is simply "Ｅ・ＨＥＲＯ" and "D・ＨＥＲＯ" and the like. The other Hero cards don't work simply because they're actually spelled in kanji instead of English.

The reason Summoned Skull and Black Skull Dragon aren't archfiends was because originally, Yugioh in the TCG was being sold to kids and they weren't allowed to say the word "Daemon" because we couldn't teach kids about the devil. The word Archfiend wasn't conceived until way later (iirc GX era,) hence why a bunch of cards are technically Archfiend cards.

Overall, the answer is how they're translated. It's why Karakuri Spider is a Karakuri card like you stated, and also why Hero's Rule 2 and HERO'S Bond are considered Rose cards - because "Rōzu" is in "Hīrōzu."

[Vanythe]

Originally posted by KenderMystic:

Nine times out of ten, the answer is "the kanji/romanji." What dictates whether or not a card is part of an archetype is if they have the exact same kanji/romanji. For example:

The Cyber cards you listed are not cybers because their japanese names usually mean "Mecha" or "Machine" or, in the case of Cyber-Tech Alligator, "Cybernetic," whose kanji does not translate to "Cyber" due to different writings.

For the HEROs, the Japanese spelling for Elemental HERO, Destiny HERO, etc. is simply "Ｅ・ＨＥＲＯ" and "D・ＨＥＲＯ" and the like. The other Hero cards don't work simply because they're actually spelled in kanji instead of English.

The reason Summoned Skull and Black Skull Dragon aren't archfiends was because originally, Yugioh in the TCG was being sold to kids and they weren't allowed to say the word "Daemon" because we couldn't teach kids about the devil. The word Archfiend wasn't conceived until way later (iirc GX era,) hence why a bunch of cards are technically Archfiend cards.

Overall, the answer is how they're translated. It's why Karakuri Spider is a Karakuri card like you stated, and also why Hero's Rule 2 and HERO'S Bond are considered Rose cards - because "Rōzu" is in "Hīrōzu."

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

"Yeah son you can't ride an electric scooter here in Germany without a license, because in the country where they make them, they're considered electric vehicles and require a license to be driven."

Honestly this sounds even more ridiculous than that quote.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Vanythe:

Originally posted by KenderMystic:

Nine times out of ten, the answer is "the kanji/romanji." What dictates whether or not a card is part of an archetype is if they have the exact same kanji/romanji. For example:

The Cyber cards you listed are not cybers because their japanese names usually mean "Mecha" or "Machine" or, in the case of Cyber-Tech Alligator, "Cybernetic," whose kanji does not translate to "Cyber" due to different writings.

For the HEROs, the Japanese spelling for Elemental HERO, Destiny HERO, etc. is simply "Ｅ・ＨＥＲＯ" and "D・ＨＥＲＯ" and the like. The other Hero cards don't work simply because they're actually spelled in kanji instead of English.

The reason Summoned Skull and Black Skull Dragon aren't archfiends was because originally, Yugioh in the TCG was being sold to kids and they weren't allowed to say the word "Daemon" because we couldn't teach kids about the devil. The word Archfiend wasn't conceived until way later (iirc GX era,) hence why a bunch of cards are technically Archfiend cards.

Overall, the answer is how they're translated. It's why Karakuri Spider is a Karakuri card like you stated, and also why Hero's Rule 2 and HERO'S Bond are considered Rose cards - because "Rōzu" is in "Hīrōzu."

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

"Yeah son you can't ride an electric scooter here in Germany without a license, because in the country where they make them, they're considered electric vehicles and require a license to be driven."

Honestly this sounds even more ridiculous than that quote.

Its a translation. Of course you would default to the original meanings. This isn't about countries but rather card design. Not at all the same thing.

[Vanythe]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Vanythe:

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

"Yeah son you can't ride an electric scooter here in Germany without a license, because in the country where they make them, they're considered electric vehicles and require a license to be driven."

Honestly this sounds even more ridiculous than that quote.

Its a translation. Of course you would default to the original meanings. This isn't about countries but rather card design. Not at all the same thing.

It was just one example of how ridiculous it is, has nothing to do with country. Imagine if an apple is called "Orange" where I'm from, now I plan to sell my apples internationally, but I refuse to call them Apples because where I'm from I call them oranges.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Vanythe:

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Its a translation. Of course you would default to the original meanings. This isn't about countries but rather card design. Not at all the same thing.

It was just one example of how ridiculous it is, has nothing to do with country. Imagine if an apple is called "Orange" where I'm from, now I plan to sell my apples internationally, but I refuse to call them Apples because where I'm from I call them oranges.

This isn't about what you call it. This is about how it behaves from a CARD DESIGN and GAME MECHANICS point of view. You go with the original because that's the one that matters. Thats the one the cards were designed in. Any bad translations have nothing to do with the gameplay itself and thus corrections are done where possible. They are mistakes. This is something people made after all. They have names and rules that mean something. If i say the wrong word the thing i am describing doesn't change to accommodate that. Like in an RPG where an ice spell is falsely called a fire spell. It doesn't become fire, its still ice.

[dabestgamer]

Originally posted by Vanythe:

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

And so they're asserting that cards should have the same functionality, regardless of region.

(...At least for the most part.)

Which is why a lot of cards got renamed, like Frog the Jam getting renamed to Slime Toad (it was never supposed to be part of the "Frog" archetype), Harpie's Brother getting renamed to Sky Scout (it was never supposed to be a "Harpie" monster), and so on. (Or a special clause if you're "Diffusion Wave-Motion".)

It's also why they errata'd cards like Summoned Skull, Axe of Despair, and Celestial Sword - Eatos to have a clause slapped on them because they're supposed to be part of those (respective) archetypes.

[C.C. 折オリ枝 の 夫]

Originally posted by Vanythe:

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

"Yeah son you can't ride an electric scooter here in Germany without a license, because in the country where they make them, they're considered electric vehicles and require a license to be driven."

Honestly this sounds even more ridiculous than that quote.

The game follows the same rules everywhere in the world and it's not based on the English language.

The cards are first released in Japanese, and that's how the rulings are made, localization doesn't change that.

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by dabestgamer:

Originally posted by Vanythe:

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

And so they're asserting the cards should have the same functionality, with regards to archetype names, regardless of region.

(...At least for the most part.)

Which is why a lot of cards got renamed, like Frog the Jam getting renamed Slime Toad (it was never supposed to be part of the "Frog" archetype), Harpie's Brother getting renamed to Sky Scout (it was never supposed to be a "Harpie" monster), and so on. (Or a special clause if you're "Diffusion Wave Motion".)

It's also why they errata'd cards like Summoned Skull, Axe of Despair, and Celestial Sword - Eatos to have a clause slapped on them because they're supposed to be part of those archetypes.

It made the Chaos cards rather messy too. Chaos Soldier is too big to be renamed from Black Luster.

[Vanythe]

Originally posted by C.C. アヌビス:

Originally posted by Vanythe:

So in short, they translated them to english but still sorted them in Japanese? Wow.

"Yeah son you can't ride an electric scooter here in Germany without a license, because in the country where they make them, they're considered electric vehicles and require a license to be driven."

Honestly this sounds even more ridiculous than that quote.

The game follows the same rules everywhere in the world and it's not based on the English language.

The cards are first released in Japanese, and that's how the rulings are made, localization doesn't change that.

I mean they went through the effort to censor most of the cards anyway, and TCG cards can't be used in OCG so why use OCG rules in TCG?

[Merilirem]

Originally posted by Vanythe:

Originally posted by C.C. アヌビス:

The game follows the same rules everywhere in the world and it's not based on the English language.

The cards are first released in Japanese, and that's how the rulings are made, localization doesn't change that.

I mean they went through the effort to censor most of the cards anyway, and TCG cards can't be used in OCG so why use OCG rules in TCG?

Because they are still the same game. You can still play together. Why would you change the game in a different region? You didn't even make it in the first place.

Changing art and adding or subtracting cards is nothing. Thats just a banlist and some graphics.

Worlds would be impossible if everyone just had entirely different rules.

[C.C. 折オリ枝 の 夫]

Originally posted by Merilirem:

Originally posted by Vanythe:

I mean they went through the effort to censor most of the cards anyway, and TCG cards can't be used in OCG so why use OCG rules in TCG?

Because they are still the same game. You can still play together. Why would you change the game in a different region? You didn't even make it in the first place.

Changing art and adding or subtracting cards is nothing. Thats just a banlist and some graphics.

Worlds would be impossible if everyone just had entirely different rules.

That is also true.

Changing the rules because English uses different words than Japanese would require Konami to change the rules for every single language.

Currently, you can play cards that have different languages on them, as long as you either have a printed translation, or the Neuron app, but if they were to change the rules for every language, then the game would be a nightmare.

[Merik Lobo]

Anytime you find the text on a card that says its not treated as "archetype name" its because Konami's translation team misnamed it and they had to put that in there so it wasn't arbitrarily included in an archetype it was never meant to be in. To be clear, cards "Cyber Soldier of Darkworld" didn't have the archetype name "Cyber" in the OCG. In this case the properly translated name was actually "Machine Soldier of Darkworld".

There's also the inverse of this where a card like "Summoned Skull" had to be errata'd to be included in the "Archfiend" archetype because Konami's translators didn't realize that names would become so important later on. Its proper name is "Summoned Daemon", where "Daemon" is the proper name for the "Archfiend" archetype.