Your favorite rhythm

[Sleepy]

I've found that after years of having the game around, many people have different tastes on what their ideal power level of the game should be, so this is gonna be pretty simple: What is yours?

 

You can answer by talking about what your favorite format is/was and why you think it is so good.

Or also, pointing out a meta that exists/existed can often just be pointing out to the biggest approximation of what you wanted the game to be like, so if you have something that goes out of the mold, feel free to talk about it.

 

The idea for this topic came to be from the obvious split in opinions seen all over the place. We see people saying they like this game over others because of the speed compared to others, while other people openly complain about said speed, wanting certain things to come back, cards to be banned, or downright an overhaul of the entire game. Oh and please even if either of these appear in the comments, don't lose your heads and be respectful to one another and each other's view points. In the same way, if somebody else is curious about your viewpoint and questions some things, don't immediately assume they are being disrespectful to you.

 

I mainly am doing this for educative purposes (sort of speak), and because we need something positive to counter the ever-so-popular "most hated decks of all time" thread and I thought this would be interesting enough.

 

 

[spoiler=Mine]

I'd say my favorite level of power in the game is from around the end of the Synchro era. More or less around the time Extreme Victory came out to be more precise (iirc). Plants were fun, versatile, and good, but they had been hit enough to get even with other decks, but not yet hit as badly as when Xyzs started to get pushed. Making power plays wasn't as wasteful as a Polymerization play from the GX era and cards were less archetype-based as that period of time either, and there was a handful of decks around that could have a chance against each other (T.G. BW, LS, Flamvells, Plants, Synchrons, even Ojamas could do a bit of stuff, etc) unlike other formats like Goat Control where other decks existed, but it still wasn't AS varied and although I love generic stuff a la draft formats, the staples that were around during that time hmmm how do I tackle that? *cough* anyways....

 

Frog FTK and Rescue Cat weren't really around but people still tried their luck with X Savers regardless. Stardust also had transformed the game from designing it towards destroying harder every time to looking for alternate forms of removal that could cost a little more or be a little more situational, but it wasn't harsh enough to deem destruction useless either.
My memory is foggy on where Hyper Librarian and Quasar were at the time but if Quasar was already an IRL thing and Librarian was still at 3, that'd be the part that dulls it out....

 

Toolboxing was better than ever before in a more varied way, although I still very much enjoy the concept of Xyzs and even Pendulums and would ideally love the power level of the game back then with the ability to use them.... that's, not currently all that possible though.

 

 

[Catman25]

There was a time not long ago where I played Fiendish Chain/BTS. There'd be one boss on the field, and dealing with it could put you in pretty good position. I hate talking about speed, but that's really what it boils down to. My one Fiendish isn't going to stop a field of 4, and the one deck that actually plays big bosses the shits can't even be targeted. You can hit Ignister, but the fact is, resources are recurrent, the search team is on fleek, swarming capability is through the roof, and the die roll actually matters. You'll get OTKed if you can't stop the Pendulum Summon, and when you actually draw the cards to do it, Dragonpit always snipes them and Unicorn gives you a handjob to add insult to injury

 

BOSH gave us some good sheet to deal with them, but they also got sheet that was better. I don't necessarily think Pendulums are unhealthy for the game, but seeing as this may likely turn out to be a Pendulum-driven format, freeing some of our friends on the banlist would make it an overall more interesting time

[Toffee.]

I kinda' want to second what OP listed.

TGs were pretty funny to play around with, and that era also gave us Nordics, to which, were pretty strong at the time as well, but were rather unknown because they were on the gimmicky side. we also had Maxx "C".

And no, TG Librarian wasn't a thing yet.

[Slinky]

Anything that isn't OTK.format

 

or anything where you don't sheet out +5 every turn.

[Krein]

So how long before we get the lern2deelwiftehchangezbruhlolsalty posts?

 

OT: Same as DysonSlinky said. I'd prefer formats where you and your opponent can actually play against each other instead of oh so skillfully OTK'ing with decks that clearly put in a lot of effort to amass resources and asserting board presence. Maybe also a format where getting your stuff destroyed actually matters.

 

I think that the game state before the Shaddoll/Qliphort arc in DT was good. I don't particularly remember everyone and their dog being able to spam and OTK as quickly as they do now.

[Sleepy]

So how long before we get the lern2deelwiftehchangezbruhlolsalty posts?

 

OT: Same as DysonSlinky said. I'd prefer formats where you and your opponent can actually play against each other instead of oh so skillfully OTK'ing with decks that clearly put in a lot of effort to amass resources and asserting board presence. Maybe also a format where getting your stuff destroyed actually matters.

 

I think that the game state before the Shaddoll/Qliphort arc in DT was good. I don't particularly remember everyone and their dog being able to spam and OTK as quickly as they do now.

 

 

Don't worry about that, I specifically said at the OP that people can't just go all "you are just awful at the game because you don't realize how to deal with that".

They can explain why they think X or Y cards have a fair number of outs at the competitive environment coming form respective commonly relevant opposing decks of the time of whatever format they might be talking about, and they'd be right about the competitive qualities of it. However, I also wanna know what the general public has to say. Like, if someone is not an expert in card theory, game design, list positions, etc.... it is still an important asset for the game to measure the casual enjoyment/degree of fun their product is able to provide. It can't be ignored since that'd close down to a good handful of potential players. I want to know the "bottom line" statements from that side of the coin as well. Experts and seasoned players are one thing, but still.

 

Besides, I've noticed over the years that there's some people out there that have said to "adapt to the times" in Yugioh and really are just in a comfort zone. I saw people calling out on those saying Synchros were ruining the game, and pretty much being all "you are a bunch of sissies that can't get on touch with the times", then I've seen them more recently and they are like "broken stuff... funk Pendulums". Of course not everybody is like this, but I've seen it. 

 

 

 

Shaddolls personally I always had fun playing against them back when they were new, like.... you could tell their Shaddoll Fusion play was very powerful, yet since their nature had most of the Summons be Set, it was rather tame in the OTK department, and taking down Winda was like clearing a boss stage in a videogame. Not to mention that ironically, the weaker your plays of the deck were, the more resources they had to spend with it so the back then far and in-between decks that didn't absolutely require Extra Deck plays, those were so fun to try out against them. Of course, that was earlier Shaddolls. I can also agree that the transition between ZeXal and Arc V eras was generally seen so interesting and enjoyable pre-Qliphs. I haven't seen Hand cards in ages.

[Lonk]

Photon Shockwave format is my favorite format of all time.  Many Decks were playable and the most used Deck of the format, Dino Rabbit, wasn't actually that bad to play against.

[Darj]

I had to do a bit of research on the top tiers of past formats because I didn't remember too much before the era of Dragon Rulers. Once I did, I concluded that my favorite format was around 2011, at a time I would call the "era of structure bosses", where we had Machina, Agents and even Dark Wolds decks and their variants clashing with each other; to this day, I still think of those decks as "the big 3" because of their dominance during those formats. Meanwhile, I also remember that Blackwings and Dragunities (who also got an Structure Deck) showed up every now and then, adding variety to the metagame, at the very least as Tier 2 decks.

I liked this format because, putting it simply, the top tier duels went down to "boss battles", either with an structure boss (one of the big 3), or a Synchro monster (Blackwing, Dragunity, etc.) with the occasional power play (Legionnaire-Aklys is a combo that comes to my mind), and yet they weren't as overwhelming as they would later become with the arrival of Inzektors, Wind-Ups and Dino Rabbit.

Then again, this is coming from what I remember, so I may be inaccurate or wrong on some things. For instance, looking at release dates, it seems that Legendary Six Samurais were already out and... well, I have unpleasant memories from their first turn swarms through Gateway; however, I can't remember how or if they had already been tamed down by the banlists. Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of Dark Worlds either, but as far as I know they were handled with the assistance of the side deck during matches so I would say things weren't too bad back then.

 

Since this structure boss era, the game has barely slowed down enough to my preferences, with the arrival of the aforementioned Inzektors, Wind-Ups, Dino Rabbit, then the release of Dragon Rulers and Spellbook of Judgment made things more chaotic. Actually, the next format I remember that I liked was early 2014, after the banlist took care of Dragon Rulers and grindy decks such as Fire Fists, Geargias, and even Bujins took the lead; and even then, there were some variants I didn't enjoy as much such as Geargia Karakuri and Lightsworn Rulers, because of their OTK-ish nature. Still, their era didn't last long once Primal Origin and Duelist Alliance, and thus H.A.T.s, Shaddolls, Tellarknights and the first Burning Abyss, were released. Then, as most should still have fresh in their memories, we had the era of Shaddolls, Nekroz, Qliphorts and Burning Abyss, until they were taken down with the latest TCG banlist.

To be fair, I did like some decks from these later formats, specifically Shaddolls and H.A.T. variants; however, since I wasn't a big fan of their competition, I can't really say these were among my favorite formats. Well, maybe the 2014 format between Duelist Alliance and The New Challenger was enjoyable for me since, if I remember correctly, H.A.T.s, Shaddolls and Tellarknights were at the top, but the latter didn't have Triverr, Qliphorts were not around yet, while Burning Abyss weren't as strong with the absence of Virgil and Lake.

 

In short, my favorite formats are those where either grind or good old boss-like beater decks were mostly dominant, and swarms and/or multiple pluses were unlikely, or at least not as extreme as we saw in Inzektors and Dragon Rulers, and we see now in Pendulum decks, PePe, etc. In a way, I would say my stance is close to Catman's, in that I like formats where either summoning a single big monster, or removing one, put you in an advantageous position (which is more or less how the aforementioned "structure boss era" went down), rather than having to deal with multiple beaters and/or locks at once.

[Slinky]

HAT was the funnest format since the Synchro Era imo. You could use pretty much any deck you wanted, and have at least some reasonable degree of success, even if the deck wasn't meta-relevant.

 

As for Synchro-era, there were so many good formats, it's hard to list them all, but the main ones that stand out for me are T.G. Stun and Tele-DAD

[- Minimania -]

For me, go as speedy as you want, everything is good until I can't play the game of Yu-Gi-Oh!

 

Take that how you wish to take it