Hello World, and congratulations for surviving 2020, now considered in the running for the Worst Year Ever Pageant, which includes 1914, 1939, and 1347. I was going to make this another New Year’s resolution blog post, but my only hope for 2021 is surviving it, considering a deadly pandemic still ravages the land and the United States learned what it feels like to be a Third World country when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building. What I’m here to talk about is my recent separation (not divorce… yet) from the articles I used to write that put me on the scene: My Yu-Gi-Oh articles. I wish I could attribute this to growing up or coming out of “a phase,” but the direction the game has taken sustained an uneasy relationship with me. Then, when my computer crashed and I had to get a new one, it made me examine my old past time and where things went wrong for my feelings regarding it. As many players shuffling bill notices along with cards will tell you, the archetypes of Yu-Gi-Oh formerly had a more inclusive aspect to them. By this I mean archetypes had effects limiting them to that archetype, meaning it was much harder to use a Mecha Phantom or Blue Eyes card outside those engines, and the Boss monsters of those decks were even more restricted. However, a splash of it at the time of Zexal that expanded to uncontainable magnitudes in Arc-V, Yu-Gi-Oh archetypes lost their inclusivity. Instead of you having full decks with monsters to support them, Konami would just create archetypes with smaller card pools that by themselves could not create a deck, but could be combined with other archetypes to create a full deck that worked surprisingly well together. Of course, this style of play existed before Zexal and Arc-V (Chaos Dragons, Zombie Sworn, and Beatdown Dragon are just a few), but most of these decks were considered rogue or at least tier 2 (except Lightsworns… Always except Lightsworns). At first, this seemed like an innocent way to expand the player base by making you able to make your decks into your own Build-A-Bear workshop, then the innocence ended when they took the summon restrictions from the Boss monsters of these respective decks. Doing so lead to the OTL, the One-Turn-Lock, state of the game, which along with the hand traps Konami created in the form of the Loli-Zombie Alliance, lead to top-tier players guaranteed victory not by outplaying their opponent, but by ensuring their opponent has no plays to begin with. Many would argue this was the inevitable fate of the game considering no other options remained to “shake things up,” meaning to make the game more fun or challenging to seasoned players. Some would even argue Konami tried correcting the mistake by limiting the number of monsters on the field. I would argue Konami appeared to sell the fun of the game for profit, and the mistakes they made scale back the game so far it creates irreparable damage to the players who dedicated themselves for decades. The pricing scheme behind what cards are expensive and what are not solidifies where Konami’s intentions are. Before, the player bases’ speculation determined a card’s value, along with its rarity. Now, Konami tries to control the game’s value by making “game breaking” cards that are needed in almost any deck to be competitive. Hand Traps are ridiculously overpriced whenever a new one comes out, along with the top cards of an archetype being overpowered and over priced, even in rogue decks that see no tournament play. Borrelload Savage Dragon was the straw that broke my back, considering the card was a generic synchro with a ridiculously powerful effect… that was priced at around $80.00 when it first premiered. Konami, or whoever is responsible for crafting out Yu-Gi-Oh cards (probably at the same factory the Frightfur’s hail from), could have prevented the game from spiraling out of control by simply letting the players decide what cards or decks would dominate the scene. By creating powerful cards to drive the game in their desired direction, and by inflating the prices of those cards, the creators made a game where the fun is stripped from the “role-playing” aspect of the game. A deck exclusively catering to Dragons, Magicians, or… Wind Monsters is no longer even close to sustainable. You have to be a meta-minded elite to even have an enjoyable match, win by preventing your opponent from engaging with you in the first place, and pay well over a hundred dollars if you want access to a deck able to carry you at least past round 1. All of this is a farcry from the Yu-Gi-Oh I loved growing up, which is why I’ve stepped away to games like Skyrim, Fate Grand/Order, and Solitaire to feed my gaming needs. If you still enjoy the game, then more power to you, but it no longer provides what I need to keep me interested. One more vet for the glue factory, I guess. On a not so grim note, be sure to check out my newest articles on Hubpages: “Top Ten Changes the Elder Scrolls Six Should Make After Skyrim” and “Top 10 Ways to Spot a Bad Anime.” Both are hilarious and, if you played Skyrim or watch Anime, might teach you something. Also, I don’t like to toot my own horn, but Wall Street trying to sink Gamestop and getting Supermaned by Reddit should remind you of my July post where I mentioned Big Tech’s war with physical media. Remember to keep vigilante on tech issues, stay safe out there, and Peace Out…
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
MAYJOR E. JohnsonAll updates for my projects, any news I find interesting, and my personal thoughts will go here. Archives
February 2022
Categories |