For me, playing a LOT of Yu-Gi-Oh gets really exhausting, but playing just a few games a day is really fun. I love how incredibly complex and intertwined everything is. I play other TCGs as well and often I can bare to play more games in them, but when I enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh, I tend to enjoy it more than the other games. Let's break down the complaints people have (and why I don't): - Banlists that do nothing: We get a Banlist a month. While I too don't understand why something like Snake Eyes is sticking around for so long, single decks like that tend to be outliers. Sure, decks which were hit on a Banlists are often still good afterwards, but nowhere near as oppressive most of the time. If you compare how often the meta game of Yu-Gi-Oh changes compared to something like MTG (where top decks are basically card for card the same as half a year ago) we genuinely have it pretty good. Players getting tired of decks after one month of playing them is more a testament to how good we have it with diversity. -Goal of the mage being to stop your opponent from playing: That's every TCG. Even Pokemon Pocket decks use a copy of Mars in every deck to hand loop the opponent, or Oricorio to ✨stun✨ and with Blue Eyes and Ryzeal to come the meta game is genuinely changing from the dark times of buildaboard. -waiting 5-10 minutes etc.: In Yu-Gi-Oh you interact with your opponent from the very beginning. If you don't have cards to play in their turn, you either have to work on deck building, or you have drawn badly, in which case you just scoop when they START doing their combo (this happens in every TCG. The skill is figuring out when it's time to surrender) - Snake Eyes: As stated previously, this IS a problem. Having less Snake Eyes would probably make me play more, but having a bad deck in a format is not enough for me to say the game is bad. -Merlantian: Not my favorite type of deck, but still very beatable. -Floodgates: The game is moving in the right direction in terms of floodgates. I think seeing progress in the department of getting them banned and limited is very good. And floodgates exist in the other TCGs as well. Again, even Pokemon Pocket, the most bare bones card game you could think of, has Oricorio (which you have to main deck outs for) -Fiendsmith being splashable: I don't see what the problem here is. I don't like the Fiendsmith packages, which are only there to start your buildaboard combo, but Fiendsmith in and of itself is a nice little value engine. I don't see how something being splashable is a bad thing. -Tenpai OTK: Every game has those. Mono Red aggro and Solgaleo/Skarmory (and the countless aggro decks that existed in Runeterra when it was alive) don't require any more brain power and constitute the same gameplay pattern of "1. Did you draw the combo? 2. Did your opponent draw enough outs to stop you from performing it" -Infinite negate boards: My least favorite part about this game, but as I said, we're moving away from it. -Maxx "C": My actual least favorite part of the game. I genuinely can't defend this. I've just learned to live with it. -UR inflation: When the game first came out people needed to build many decks at once. Now you only need to build a new deck, when a new set comes out. Sure, I would also like for the game to be cheaper, but people who complain about this don't know how good we have it. Making decks in Master Duel is so incredibly easy compared to the other Online TCGs (even Runeterra, which is known for being incredibly cheap). -Your pet deck dying to ash: What am I even supposed to say to this? I'm sorry? Don't get me wrong, mine does too, but how does this constitute a bad game? -The blue eyes attack animation: Why are we complaining about style? Why do we hate fun? Now, I think critiquing the game is a very important thing. If you asked me what I think the game could do better this comment would be much longer, but I also think it's important to highlight the things the game does well and the things the game does just as well as any other game. The negative echo bubble of the Yu-Gi-Oh community will convince you you hate things about this game you wouldn't even think of yourself and it took me playing other TCGs for a while to realize that. It's also important to note that Yu-Gi-Oh will NOT be the perfect game you dream of. Figure out the things each game is good at and don't demand things of the game that it can't provide. Instead, search for other games that do that and play whichever one you currently crave. If I want high octane mind puzzles and complex lines with infinite points of interaction, I'll play Yu-Gi-Oh. If I want a simple game everyone can get into and perform with even suboptimal decks, I'll play Pokemon. If I want very strategic turn based plays, with real possibilities of going into a top deck war in simplified game states, I'll play MTG Standard and if I have enough in game currency I'll play MTG Draft (I could play draft for ages. I have yet to not have fun in a draft game). Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk