Meta Decks: Why do YOU use them?

[76561199683594779]

I am genuinely interested as to why you play X meta deck and for what reason? you use them because you see everyone else use them? or you got sick and tired of them being used against you, you just do it urself?

Give me a good idea of why you use them and for what reason


Examples:

Why do you play kashtira? are you just a fan of the archetype or just to pur(r)ely annoy the opponent by banishing all their cards?

Why do you enjoy using Branded fusion?

How come you play Labrynth decks?

You enjoy spending 5 minutes putting up a board only for to completely negate ur opponent from doing anything at all? if they quit straight away, why bother?

[76561199683594779]

as to my deck, i play a Curse Necrofear spirit board deck with some twists like Skill drain. (because curse necrofear still works) and Dark sanctuary, put in some Summon Limit and Spirit Barrier and sit back

[Silyon]

I don't use them, mainly because I don't find the idea of preventing my opponent from playing the game fun. I don't need to resort to the insane recursion of Labrynth, the nigh indestructible cat from Purrley, or the negate-flood from Snake-Eyes in order to win more often than I lose anyway. I enjoy the puzzle of figuring out how to win a close match after both sides have everything set up.

Meta decks don't tend to support that playstyle, so I don't play them. But I imagine there are three reasons why people play any particular meta deck.

• First, obviously, they enjoy it. Could be the artstyle, the themes or story, or the mechanics, but something about the archetype appeals to them. Nothing wrong with that, and I feel bad for people getting shamed for enjoying an archtype that just happens to also be really good at what it does. Isn't it what we all want? They're just living what the rest of us dream of.
  
• Second, they're competitive players that care about rank and want to preform the best that they can. They invest their time and energy into something that they want to get better at, and in doing so don't want to handicap themselves with bad cards or janky psudo-synergies when there's cleaner and more efficient options for doing what they want to do. Meta is meta primarily because it preforms the best in the game at the present time, and that's all the reason they need to run it.
  
• Third, they're a new or inexperienced player trying to use the "good decks" to cover for their lack of skill in the game. They could be misguided in thinking card or deck quality is the only factor in determining success, or they might just want to avoid shade being thrown at being inexperienced and having a poor win rate. Never feels good to be mocked, and the community sure does like mocking people.

Really, meta players arn't that different from casual ones. At some point (I hope) you realize that you're the one pushing the "us" vs. "them" mindset and that's it's stupid because in the end everyone's playing for the same thing. To have fun in their own way.

[Raven]

I can't say I play any meta decks, because I like pure decks. And my answer as to why I play a deck, its because I find it fun. It's fun for me, nothing more nothing less. And when I say "pure" I mean like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248573718
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248573702
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248573691

[76561199683594779]

Those are cool! i play majorily this on this account (it was cheaper to make a new acc for gems than to farm em on main lol)

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199683594779/screenshot/2494509226703413000/

on my main i play a Timethief-Crooked cook deck to be invulnerable whilst slowly drying out their deck and use lava golems, kaijus, fire queen (the delete 1 card at every end of the turn etc)


then my 2nd deck on my main is a Kaiju deck , as i like the interaction (and really to just take away their ace monsters (haha barone go bye)

[¿¡Kloey!?²]

Anytime I've played a 'meta' deck it was by pure coincidence since I play by aesthetics first and if the gameplay interests me second and then I consider if it's good or not to keep playing as third. The main tier 1 deck I've played in my history off the top of my head was when Harpies were the dominant tier 1 strategy in duel links but I mained the deck cause it felt like a more aggressive counterpart to my defensive Yosenju deck for me which I already had been maining way before that.

Honestly speaking I probably would have played snake eyes if it wasn't so expensive for me at the time as I remember wanting to play the deck over a year ago when looking at archetypes for aesthetic purposes.

tl;Dr I play what I want as long as it's playable.

[G3]

I play decks based on what they do and how their artwork is. If it's meta, cool. If not, ok.

I played True Draco, Spyral, Swordsoul, Branded and, Unchained for their artwork. Their playstyles lead me to take interest in Gouki U-link for all the combos like Spyral. Purrely for Ex Noir like Master Peace. I've also played Gren Maju decks. They became anti-meta for a bit and it was fun. I miss comboing Grinder Golem with Inferno Tempest in those decks. The banish style lead me to Kashtira and Floo. Floo is like True Draco in that it uses normal/tribute summon shinagans and can sit on floodgates to be annoying.

[Fatality]

I don't usually use any meta deck as my main deck, but I've definitely used decks like Branded, Swordsoul when it was tiered and very little Labrynth.
I like Branded, because it has so many lines that you have to know or think about if you want to use it properly. Swordsoul on the other hand is usually fast with it's combos and that's why I used it for some time. Simple yet effective. Can of course get more complicated if you use tenyi lines, but not even close to Branded. Finally, I use Labrynth from time to time when I want to enjoy some trap gaming. It's the best trap deck that can have some good results so why not use it from time to time? You don't have to stick to doing monster combos all the time. It's nice for a change.

[76561199683594779]

give the deck i linked a try, its a stun deck with 2 ways of playing based off ur starter hand, you can go stunlock someone with spell traps or play necrofear/curse necro, i got to Plat 4 so far with it

[76561199683594779]

i also do fancy the Danger! deck in combo with kaiju's, its a fun playstyle. altho i sometimes tend to forget with Kyoutou watertower, my opponents can also use my kaiju counters lol

[Raven]

Originally posted by gredora:

I normally play decks based off their playstyle and aesthetics. I do not care if they're meta or not. What matters more is that I enjoy the deck.
Accuse me of "bandwagoning the meta" if an old deck becomes one. I don't care. You don't know anything about me.


Some meta decks I've played in the past over the years (since 2010), not in particular order: Domain Monarchs, True Draco, Altergeist, Prank-Kids, Burning Abyss, Vayu Turbo, ABC, Madolche

I guess if you want to believe anything 2020 and onward is recent:
It's Swordsoul, Exosisters, and Unchained.


If it's not obvious, I like to play mid-range or super grindy decks or some combo
Hell, I still play most of them today.

Swordsoul, Unchained and Exosisters being my main 3 today since I've played those decks since they've been released.

Nothing new, other than the upcoming Yubel, XYZ-to-ABC, and Madolche is interesting to me right now.

Kashtira, Snake-Eye, Lab, Rescue-Ace, just aren't interesting to me.

I'm so jealous of people who can play exosister well. I have the deck, I know it works well, but whenever I play it my brain likes to blank out due to overload of options

[TormentedSalad]

I play whatever deck catches my attention I played lab because it seemed interesting but I mostly enjoyed combining it with Plunder Patroll made for a more engaging deck overall, I played Tearlament because it said send x number of cards from your deck to the graveyard really its not all that complicated it just satisfies the little gambler goblin in my head.

[Raven]

Originally posted by gredora:

Originally posted by Raven:

I'm so jealous of people who can play exosister well. I have the deck, I know it works well, but whenever I play it my brain likes to blank out due to overload of options

I've liked the deck since their release in Grand Creators. Honestly crazy how all three of those archetypes had meta relevance. Getting Martha and Returnia in POTE was a huge bonus for the deck.

So knowing what to do and which Exosister to xyz summon in response to cards moving out the GY, is the only learning part for the deck.

I mean, if you look at my example decks, I'm not very clever. I never really got past the unga bunga stage of yugioh. basically when I play around with exosister to practice in solomode, I can have time to work out what should be used when, but once a timer is involved my mind goes pretty blank. And none of the solomode scenarios are even good to practice exosister with. I think the only gate that even really focuses on graveyard stuff is the mayakashi and shiranui decks? I can't really remember. I mostly like simple decks, which is why I probably play pure decks :P

[Papa Shekels]

I used to just main reptiles, but felt bad with the results they were putting up at locals so I finished a live twin spright deck I was building (because I happened to pull a CR and two starlights for it just from individual boxes...you can't NOT play the deck at that point) and played that for a while. I proved to myself that I could consistently win with a better deck, but also ended up enjoying it and still pivot back to it from time to time.

The only other deck I play that was part of any recent meta is kashtira, and I just loved that deck even before it released. It's a really nice mix of control and midrange in terms of play style, and the fact that they fit their lore and theme so well is a really nice boost. Kashtira are supposed to represent anger and be this invading alien species that loots the planet and renders it uninhabitable for others, and that is exactly what it feels like to play against them. They also do this without a bunch of long combos or link climbing, each individual card in the deck is a power card. I wanted to play it as soon as it was announced, but by the time it released in TCG I never ended up playing it because I didn't want to spend $50 per fenrir, $20 per unicorn, $30 per theosis, $25 per wraitsoth...

[Marik]

Where gems?

[Soji]

mostly to learn the matchup from both sides. more info you have on how a deck works the easier its counters become apparent and you can adjust your decks and playstyle accordingly.

But yes, I do enjoy putting up a huge board that make the other person unable to play the game. I don't like getting my entire board eaten by Sphere Mode Ra either, but hey that's the life I live playing a deck based around negates like that. Just like that's the life people live playing decks that can't break boards.

At the end of the day my enjoyment is more important to me than others and I expect the people who remove my entire board with kaijus feel the same way, that's why they even run these cards in the first place. That's just yugioh really lol