What's Wrong with Yugioh Today

The game we play today is not the game that it once was. I'm 20 and I've been playing this game since it was released in English in the early 2000's (I think it was 2002-03) so roughly 13 years. This was well before Xyz's, Synchro's and Pendulums were a thing. There were no monsters that could special summon themselves from the hand until Swift Gaia the Fierce Knight was created (at least that I am aware of). There were no things like hand traps except for Kuriboh (again, that I'm aware of). If we wanted to summon a Boss Monster, we either had to Fusion for it, Ritual for it or Tribute for it. The Boss Monsters of the game I grew up with were the Egyptian God Cards: Obelisk the Tormentor, the Winged Dragon of Ra and Slifer the Sky Dragon. And they don't even scratch the Bosses of today. You summon a God these days and your opponent is just like "Ok, I'll Quasar, or I'll Tiaramisu, or I'll Triverr". Their Boss Monsters are going to be able to easily deal with the God Cards because that is how crazy the game has gotten. It has gotten to the point where you should be able to deal with a powerful monster in one turn. In the old days, dealing with a powerful monster would've taken 3, 4 maybe even 5 turns of setup before you could destroy it.

And Fusion Summoning is a joke now. Originally, you needed specific monsters. If you wanted Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, you needed three Blue-Eyes White Dragons. If you wanted Dark Paladin, you needed Dark Magician and Buster Blader. GX came along and sort of changed it. With GX, you needed an Elemental Hero and a specific attribute monster. Yes, some Fusion Monsters like Elemental Hero Flame Wingman needed specific specific monsters, but overall a Hero and an attribute was all you needed. Fusions sort of took a back seat through 5D's and Zexal, but have come back a bit with Arc V with the Performpal's, but it is "fuse anything you want and then summon any monster you like". But it wasn't broken enough for Konami. "How about we take away Polymerization and allow them to Fusion Summon by either Banishing the materials, or shuffling them back into the deck?". Konami, you just broke your own rules! Chapter 2, Page 16 of the Official Rulebook states: They are Summoned by using the specific monsters listed on the card combined with a Summoning Card like 'Polymerization'. But even that wasn't broken enough. Konami had to make the Masked Heroes, which shouldn't even be Fusion Monsters because they require only one monster. That's it. Just one monster, nothing else other than a Summoning card, which is the only thing Konami did right when they made them. To my mind, Masked Heroes should be the usual Effect Monsters.

And they couldn't leave Ritual Summoning alone either. The Nekroz archetype is a perfect example of Ritual Summoning gone completely wrong. Back in my day, you needed the tributes to equal the level of the Ritual Monster, but when Konami created Nekroz, they were just like "Nah, it's cool. Tribute one level 4 monster and summon as many level whatever Ritual Monsters you like (as long as they're Nekroz)". And the new BLS and Gaia support is even worse when it comes to Ritual Summoning because you don't even need the specific Ritual Spell card!

And who tributes these days? Tribute Summoning has more or less been eradicated from the game, unless you're tributing your opponent's monsters for something like Sphere Mode! I love Sphere Mode. I've thrown it in my Egyptian God Deck (which works. It can handle some of the Meta and beat it), but it is ridiculous that no one Tribute Summons anymore.

When the game was originally created, it was fun. It was social, it was skillful. These days though it is basically, if you end your turn you lose. So here's a challenge for all you Meta players out there, and Anti-Meta as well: Build a non-Meta deck and test your skill against each other. And by non-Meta I mean cards that were never Meta. So that means you can't use Fire Formations, or Six Samurai's, or Watt's or anything else that was formerly Meta/Anti-Meta. Do it, and you will see how fun the game actually is without trying to continually FTK or Stun your opponent. Play the game that I grew up with, because that is Yugioh in its purest form.

If you want, I am more than happy to duel you, but I am at Uni now so I'm not going to be on as often, but by all means, if you're on and I'm on ask to duel. If I'm not currently in a Duel or I'm going to be leaving soon, I'll duel. For those who don't know, my username is Big Dub on DN (I don't use DevPro because my laptop won't support it and I can't afford to buy a new one, Down the track though maybe I will be on there).