Creativity in card effects.

[KH911]

This post was inspired by the previous post about the future of the game. I can't be the only one who realized the lack of creativity in card design over the past few years. Konami has just gotten so lazy with it. Whenever they want a boss monster, slap a negate (or some version of a negate) on it, make it untargetable or indestructible, and give it big numbers. It's so boring. The focus of link monsters was the arrows, to make people worry about the zones they put monsters. When I learned about links I was excited to see all the creative strategies that involve the zones monster are placed in, only to learn appliancers and mekk-knights are the only decks to care about zones. 90% of link monsters couldn't care less about their arrows, they don't use their arrows for anything. Links are THE MOST BORING monster types in the history of Yugioh. Here's some examples of more creative monster effects:

 

1. Effects based on turn-count, which would naturally be accompanied with effects that change turn-count. This is nothing new, we have Great Moth, Clock Tower, and Final Countdown relying on turn count. We also have Pyro Clock of Destiny advancing turn count. We could use more stuff like this.

2. What happened to hand disruption? I know it's strong, it could just have a heavy cost associated with it. There's barely any cards that discard, shuffle, banish, etc. cards in the hand. There's barely any cards that mess with the deck or opponent's GY. Parasite Paracide is a type of effect I would love to see more of, it goes in your opponent's deck so if they draw into it they're at a disadvantage.

3. How about instead of monsters respond by negating cards, they instead respond by imposing limitations? For example, "When your opponent activates a monster effect, for the rest of that turn they cannot activate effects of monsters with the same name/type/attribute/level (choose one)" so the effect still goes through but after that their plays would be restricted. 

4. Most importantly, I believe cards should have effects that are directly related to their archetype. Instead of a generic omni-negate, Dark Worlds can change the effect to benefit themselves. More of this. Instead of a generic search, Suships are getting Chef's Choice, where you recommend a "dish", your opponent can either order that "dish" or another one if they know the "menu", and then they have to "pay" for how many "dishes" they ordered. This is the pinnacle of in-theme effects. More of this. Even if it's just a negate or just a search, it instantly becomes more fun once you start role playing your deck.

 

There's definitely a lot more creative effects people can come up with, the ones listed is just what I can come up with off the top of my head. I'd love to see other people's ideas for creative types of effects. Effects that are either heavily underutilized or just simply don't exist in the game.

[Zamazenta the OS-Tan Fan]

You know we do need more effects like the Dark World Fusion Monster or Number 75: Bamboozling Gossip Shadow.

[PotAndGreed]

I think the hand should be one of those places in Yugioh which is 'sacred' and safe from disruption generally tbh. The rest is interesting however.

[~British Soul~]

19 hours ago, KH911 said:

The focus of Link monsters was the arrows, to make people worry about the zones they put monsters. When I learned about Links I was excited to see all the creative strategies that involve the zones monster are placed in, only to learn appliancers and mekk-knights are the only decks to care about zones. 90% of Link monsters couldn't care less about their arrows, they don't use their arrows for anything. Links are THE MOST BORING monster types in the history of Yugioh.

Link arrows still matter as even with the Master Rule Revision, Link monsters can only be summoned to the EMZ or a zone a Link monster points to (same with Pendulums from the Extra), they just don't matter as much as they did during VRAINS' run where Links were the de facto main summon mechanic associated with the series, but now there isn't as big an emphasis on promoting Links vs the other Extra Deck types post-VRAINS.

[KH911]

1 hour ago, ~British Soul~ said:

Link arrows still matter as even with the Master Rule Revision, Link monsters can only be summoned to the EMZ or a zone a Link monster points to (same with Pendulums from the Extra), they just don't matter as much as they did during VRAINS' run where Links were the de facto main summon mechanic associated with the series, but now there isn't as big an emphasis on promoting Links vs the other Extra Deck types post-VRAINS.

I was talking more about the lack of effects relating to link arrows. There's so much potential for creative uses of link arrows, linking, and co-linking, but instead Konami opted for the lazy approach of giving generic effects that may as well just exist on any other monster type. There's nothing making link monsters unique other than the fact they have to be summoned to a specific zone.

[~British Soul~]

55 minutes ago, KH911 said:

I was talking more about the lack of effects relating to link arrows. There's so much potential for creative uses of link arrows, linking, and co-linking, but instead Konami opted for the lazy approach of giving generic effects that may as well just exist on any other monster type. There's nothing making link monsters unique other than the fact they have to be summoned to a specific zone.

There are still Links that are printed that have effects related to their arrows and/or mentioning the term co-linked, I can think of two released in the last 6 months, but yes since Master Rule Revision there has been less emphasis on Link Arrows for reasons I've already mentioned. Also despite that, Links are unique in the sense that they don't have a Defence stat so stuff like BoM, BoE don't work on them.