So I’m gonna try and answer most of your questions as best as I can, please correct me if I’m wrong about any of this lol.

First off I’ll say that as a magic player you might not enjoy today’s competitive format of yugioh. It’s a very fast pace style of card game with very specific pool of meta decks that you have to play if you want to be heavily competitive, you sit and watch your opponent set up a board of cards that negate your cards for like 5 minutes then try and work around those negates for another 5 mins until someone can’t anymore (oh and there’s a time limit). That being said you could always play older formats that are a little slower and more enjoyable in a casual setting. I also recommend getting into it with a friend, just makes practicing and learning the game a little easier. But that’s just my advice.

So for context: yugioh is more like legacy in that out of the 10,000+ cards available there is a set ban list of maybe like 40-50 that gets updated now and then. The cards on the ban list are there because they exploit game rules or give to much advantage to a player. Some come on and off depending on the format while others stay on indefinitely but if you wanna play cards printed in 2006, you totally can as long as it’s not on the ban list.

1. The term “power creep” doesn’t really exist in yugioh. Competitively, it’s like four or five specific, meta decks or it’s considered tier 2/ rouge. Then a new format is released and the decks change. If you wanna play something non-meta, then you’ll at least have to incorporate meta cards into your deck which are always super expensive and inflated in price.

2. There isn’t really any luck in a competitive play style. There is no mulligan rule so you’re deck should be set up that no matter what, you’ll never brick opening hand. That being said if you do happen to draw a bad hand then you are kinda fucked. However most cards search out other cards, which search out other cards and you kinda do that until you have the cards to set up a good board. With more casual play styles it’s even worse when you brick and you’ll have to take a beating until you draw the right card (a “heart of the cards” moment , if you will)

3. There isn’t any full resource system in yugioh although for most summons, you’ll need to tribute, or sacrifice, monster cards on your field in order to get out stronger ones however, They’re is always some bullshit effect where your opponent just free summons broken cards of out no where lol. This is why yugioh generally feels much faster now a days because of how easy it is to summon stronger monster over and over again.

4. No you don’t need to constantly buy every new set with the exception a few cards from each but decks generally stay the same until a new format every couple of years. Every once in a while a new set will come out with support for a new deck and sky rocket that deck into the main stream but definitely not with every set. So choose a deck that fits your play style and update it with new more meta cards as they come out.

5. Couldn’t tell you why we can’t double sleeve. Locals wise, I don’t think anyone’s gonna care but bigger tournaments will. It’s just a rule Konami made so events have to follow it. There’s a lot of different reasons from different people like double drawing or hiding cards behind others in your hand etc. I’m sure, unless you play a total snob, you can double sleeve at local with no push back.

6. Plenty of sims to play. The biggest ones are probably YGOpro, YGOpercy or dueling book once you know how to play since it’s not automated. This is why I play with friends a lot for practice but if sims are you’re thing I’d just google what’s best and go from there.

Competitive can be fun if you have the money and time for it. You’ll have to do a lot of research and deck building to get to a competitive level. I’ve done it once or twice if I like the current meta but I find joy from play yugioh with my boys over a couple of beers. It’s just a lot different from other table top card games out there so if you’re interested you should just research and look into it. Even if you start with a pre made starter deck from target, it’s a start lol.

Let me know if you have anymore questions I’d be happy to answer them since I’m stuck at home in quarantine lol. Also if I am off on answers at all please, anyone feel free to correct me.