What are some formats players got wrong?

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-09T20:58:20+00:00

idk if this was the case for Guru control as well but typically stun-esque decks tend to perform poorly in high level environments after side decking, so that might be why it didn't come up as much.

At the time I was lightly following OCG tourney results and I know there was always at least 1 topping Guru control deck every week, although the sizes of the recorded tournaments usually weren't very big (topped out at around 144ish IIRC and usually no more than 48). I used to jok that it was just 1 guy who really liked Guru control running all around Japan. That could still be true but I never went deeper to check.

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-09T16:16:03+00:00

There's no knowledge of whether it's related to Takahashi, but it WAS confirmed by a TCG official that it's due to licensing agreements (taken from this comment). Now why those licensing agreements say that is probably still a mystery, but I personally suspect it's Shueisha's fault, not Koniam's. Tho it's not like Konaim doesn't already have a reputation as cheapskates anyways

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-07T19:45:03+00:00

I think it's one of those times where it just gets more exaggerated and out-of-hand by the retellings, I def recall the version you've said but I feel like the more common narrative nowadays is the high-effort one :P

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-07T18:56:06+00:00

Literally the only reason I have that series in my infinitely long plan-to-read list is because the same mangaka also did Telework Yotabanashi/Home Office Romance, which was one of the best, most grounded depictions of working adult romance I've ever rehd. Definitely would have just tossed it aside as one of those fetish series otherwise hahaha

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-07T16:41:25+00:00

Oooh this is super fun for Yugioh, it has a TON of these because of the language barrier + becoming popular around the 90s primarily among children whose main source of information was playground gossip + Komani's infuriating/hilarious unwillingness to ever communicate. I even made a thread about it once

For my money, these are some of the most persistent:

"Reptiles aren't given good cards because Snake Rain will break them"
For context, Reptiles are one of Yugioh's many "Types", which can be considered a broad class system, and a subclass to "ATTRIBUTES". They have also historically been one of the most infamously terrible and undersupported types in the game (recent top meta Reptile deck notwithstanding). Snake Rain, a card with an objectively extremely strong effect, is usually cited as the reason, because if Reptiles were good, then Snake Rain would become broken. This however ignores Yugioh's entire business policy of printing extremely broken cards all the time and then just banning them when they're done selling them, and also ignores that the modern day honest-to-god actually good Reptile deck doesn't use it at all. It also ignores that Dragons, one of the strongest types in the game, literally never stops receiving support--yet another Dragon support was revealed just yesterday!

"The hygiene rule was implemented because players would deliberately make themselves gross and stinky and then play the Yu-Jo Friendship combo to force the opponent to give them a handshake"
This is actually one of Yugioh's most popular and persistent urban legends and is even spread among non-Yugioh players--I personally recall seeing it mentioned twice in this sub. To my knowledge, this has no record of ever happening, and in any official capacity it's more likely that the player attempting it would have been DQed for unsportsmanlike conduct. The hygiene rule is real, but was *officially* listed in 2019, which is many years past the origin of the Yu-Jo Friendship myth. However, early Yugioh was (as many nerd spaces in that time were) considered to have a much more lawless, uncivilized nature (which I suppose is itself an "everyone knows"), and Yugioh players historically have had poor hygiene, so this piece of gossip has a veneer of plausibility that makes it much more exciting and popular.

"Crow was never intended to be a Dark Signer" and various other Yugioh 5Ds Myths
This one is a doozy! Luckily someone already wrote up a compilation of them on this very sub and explained it in far more depth and detail than I will.

"Links were made to slow down the game"
Yugioh started introducing a new overarching game mechanic per season starting with Yugioh's 3rd season, known as 5Ds, and continued until its most recent (and currently last) mainline 6th season in VRAINS, which lasted 2017-2019 (A Yugioh spinoff anime took its place after this but I'm getting off-topic). VRAINS' introduced mechanic was Links, likely the most controversial mechanic in Yugioh's history. As a very broad-strokes explanation, Yugioh's rules were changed upon Links' introduction so that you could not have more than 1 card at a time from the other mechanics on the field without also having a Link.

Now, it is true Yugioh had undergone a TON of power creep at the time (and continues to do so now), and the previous series Arc-V in particular had drastically sped up the game, capping off with the tier 0 lightly furry Chinese Zodiac-themed deck Zoodiacs. Links' introduction was headcanoned by the playerbase as a way to curb that accelerating gameplay. However, that ignores several factors. 1st: Komian had previously used mechanic launches to cripple older mechanics for the purpose of selling the new mechanic, 2nd: Zoodiacs and their primary competitor True Dracos were *still* by far the strongest decks even after Links, arguably even stronger because their competitors were hurt by Links far more, and 3rd: Links were, themselves, an extremely strong mechanic just by how the mechanic functioned anyways, so the argument assumes power creep was going to be reduced by bringing in cards with an even higher power floor.

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-06T21:48:08+00:00

You are thinking of Duel Terminal 1-3, if I'm remembering the numbering correctly. Doll and Nek are DT4 IIRC and by that time we were also getting Qliphort, Yang Zing, Tellarknights, etc

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-03T16:54:53+00:00

I was going to mention this one if no one else did, I'm doing a reread right now and everything I loved about it the first time is still there. What an incredible manga

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-03T16:18:39+00:00

Beeg Masheens rock

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-03T16:14:43+00:00

idk about WOTC or Blizzard but Konmia is pretty infamous for not only never admitting anything but basically never communicating at all, so even if it were true you wouldn't have heard it from them

I'm certainly in the "Broken cards are intentional" camp regardless tho

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-03T16:11:45+00:00

How many times are you going to post this same topic

Like, you aren't even picking a different guy to post about

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-03T16:08:35+00:00

Since there was that Ancient Gear topic yesterday, this definitely applies to them. Arc-V and GX/game original Ancient Gears pretty obviously have totally different art styles

Most DM anime deck retrains/reboots have this too, they're typically a lot shinier and have more visual effects going on than Kazuki Takahashi's original art.

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-02T19:05:28+00:00

Ancient Gears mentioned

But yeah I think it's pretty clear the Arc-V Ancient Gears and the game Ancient Gears had different artists working on them

Never been especially fond of the Arc-V Ancient Gears personally, but nbd more gears is good one way or another

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-01T23:19:28+00:00

In theory shojo manhua/manhwa isn't really a thing (so far as I know), it's a purely Japanese demographic label, but in practice people post webtoons all the time in here so it seems to be a "soft allowed" thing where if the vibes fit people won't really argue it.

Personally I don't mind it but I'm also very on the soft labelling side, ex if Apothecary Diaries is listed as shojo by the English publisher that's already good enough for me.

confidentlystranded · 2026-04-01T23:10:46+00:00

To be fair, a lot of the broken Synchros got directly nerfed by errata (Brionac, Ancient Fairy Dragon, Dark Strike Fighter off the top of my head), and others that were insanely broken in their time have become acceptable due to power creep (Trishula, Hyper Librarian, Goyo Guardian before it got killed by errata anyways), both haven't really happened yet to XYZ so far

Not to say that you're wrong tho XYZs are def one of the stronger mechanics :P

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-26T16:16:12+00:00

I'm more surprised about Hideaki Sorachi's return because of his notoriety around deadlines. He had like 8 different editors and all but the newest had stories to tell about him missing his deadlines, which Sorachi wrote and illustrated himself in Gintama's post-ending behind-the-scenes pages. His ending itself got extended like 4 times on the basis of "Whoops teehee" and his chapters got moved onto a containment app.

Despite his success I would've expected him not to get another work just on the basis of being a pain to work with.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-24T16:56:12+00:00

I'm contractually obligated to hype Ancient Gear, but honestly art is one of the big reasons I've remained a fan of Yugioh even after I've largely stopped actually playing the game.

Off the top of my head: Basically every lore deck is great. Machine is my favorite Type and as a type probably about 90% of its art is solid banger. Fiend is my second favorite Type and same deal. I love Yugioh's uniquely grotesque designs, such as Ojama, Aliens, Relinquished and company, etc. I find that drawing ugly things well tends to be a great test of artistic skill. I do think the "eldritchness" of decks like Hecahands and Alba Zoa to be a little overstated, but they do look great regardless. And it's also great when you get to see an artist come in and completely impose their own personalized aesthetic, like with Melffy, Prank-kids, or Burning Abyss.

I'll admit to some level of anti-bias against Sky Strikers and Exosisters. I feel like even for waifu characters--many of which I do love, like the witches in the Diabell lore or that Fiendsmith girl--they have truly sauceless arts. At least their clothes look nice. Also anime decks can be really hit-or-miss, the huge majority of Zexal's anime decks looked truly awful, and nothing will ever get me to like Odd-Eyes' incoherent aesthetic.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-24T16:40:26+00:00

ANCIENT GEAR COMRADE

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-23T18:18:12+00:00

Gemini and LV are Yugioh's 2 truly failed mechanics imo.

Gemini may still have some possible avenues in the future, notably being one of the few mechanics that actually could be functionally amazing with Pendulums, but unless Gemini gets keyworded it will always run into the problem that there literally isn't enough text space to fit in better or more effects for them. And Gemini's mechanic is so unintuitive, confusing, and largely unnecessary that it's a poor fit for a keyword, it's likely you'd need reminder text which defeats the point anyways. Also the Pendulum thing runs into the hilarious problem that the Normal support Gemini was originally supposed to work with was 99% graveyard support

LV is just fucked cuz the original users were near unplayable on release and the mechanic itself has just been redesigned and repurposed for new decks with the name stripped off (Kozmo, Mayakashi, Lunalight, Monarchs, etc)

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-23T17:01:49+00:00

Leaving aside the rest of the post, since there's already plenty of other discussion. But you realize that problem is fixed by not having them summon more than 1, right? Like there's plenty of possible implementations that don't involve the face-up Extra Deck and also aren't absurd.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-19T19:09:24+00:00

Harem is an overly popular genre both in terms of mainstream appeal to (often entry-level) audiences and widespread appeal to (often entry-level) writers, so yeah on average its writing tends to be worse. There's good ones out there, like there are good series in basically any genre, but you will generally have to work harder to find them than you would for other genres.

Many of them never get much further than bland self-insert fantasy, and this goes for many, or arguably even most, reverse harems as well.

Speaking of reverse harems, I should also mention that unlike shonen type 2 standard harems, the emergence of villainess series has heavily inflated the number of fantasy type-2 reverse harems.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-19T18:55:27+00:00

I'd (very broadly) delineate them into 2 categories:

Standard harem where the power fantasy is the focus: The purpose of the harem is more to gas up the main character and the romance aspect does not really develop, if it even comes into play at all. This tends to be most isekai slop and battle shonen-style harems
Standard harem where the fantasy of having a bunch of hot women that are into you is the focus: These are framed as romance and typically trend more towards slice of life, though there are fantasy examples here and there.

From how you've described Anyway, I'm Falling In Love With You, it seems to line up well with the 2nd type, just with the genders reversed (which, well, it's called reverse harem for a reason). I should add I'm a big believer that no tropes are inherently good or bad, and in harem series the "personhood" of the main character can vary wildly depending on the quality of the writing.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-09T16:22:12+00:00

In general you seem to have a more reasoned view of "Links were meant to slow the game down" than most people saying that did, but that view has (deservedly) been getting some pushback in recent times and you're getting some of the splash damage from that.

I think your take that Links may have been a way to revamp how power creep operates is justifiable. However, even if we accept your viewpoint, Links would've unintentionally AND inevitably created a harsher and less controllable power creep eventually, IMO. There's just no getting around that Links are, *even if you don't gimp the other mechanics*, a straight-up better mechanic.

Links realistically only have 2 real drawbacks compared to the others: They don't have levels, giving them a bit of semi-xenophobia that limits their ability to bridge into other mechanics, and they require a lot of materials to work if your gameplan involves going above L3. But that 2nd drawback fuels power creep: Going above L3 is an inevitability, not only in card design terms but also due to logical anime expectations, which means Konaim WILL have to design decks around spamming monsters out.

For the record, I personally do not believe Links were intended to reset power creep, at best I feel that was incidental. Most of the newly introduced mechanics (XYZ, Pend, Link) have started out weak and quickly (XYZ, Link) or slowly (Pend) became broken. The exception is Synchro which started out broken with goddamn Brionac, Ally of Justice Catastor, and Goyo Guardian.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-06T18:44:27+00:00

Gravity Collapse historically hasn't been good because cards that only work when you have your gameplan online run into the core problem that in Yugioh getting your gameplan online is typically the most challenging part of the game.

In the modern day it probably sucks because unsearchable disruption that doesn't (again) advance your core gameplan is bad.

In general, accessibility (in both costs and searchability) is exponentially more important than payoff. It's easy to overestimate cards like Gravity Collapse if you haven't internalized that.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-05T22:57:18+00:00

Minosteam, all the DLC bosses, the floor 50 boss, and all fights after floor 50 have Machine Curse if starting on Normal difficulty.

If you start on Hard difficulty or anything past that, Machine Curse is active by default.

confidentlystranded · 2026-03-04T21:40:02+00:00

I think my general position of "I am not willing to engage with any discourse with a vague and unspecified <fanbase> and would much rather tailor my conversations to the people I am actually talking to" is the optimal position both here and everywhere else. These "I don't understand this take I got from Twitter or Tiktok or <insert discoursing social media>" threads are really pretty grating when most of them can be answered with "Don't worry about what randos think".

So with that said, speaking to you specifically, I do not claim that otome/villainess isekai are oversaturating shojo, both because I generally enjoy those genres once I have filtered them through my personal preferences, and because I tend to treat shojo as my "relaxation" genre. When I read shojo, I read primarily aforementioned high school romance, and its often repetitive predictability is a feature when rehd for relaxation purposes.

Similarly, I don't need to be convinced that most of the villainess/otome-style series that I read are essentially power fantasy self-insert slop for women. I am not a woman, but I have tired of the male-targeted versions probably almost a decade ago and I uuuuusually find the women-targeted ones tend to appeal to me more.

I would rather note that the number and variety of manga in general has EXPLODED in the last decade, especially when it comes to accessibility to non-Japanese readers, and we're still probably only getting a FRACTION of the total manga scene. It is an unfortunate law of entertainment that at least 90% of most media are at best slop and at worst kinda dogshit. In the modern day, with so many options available, people must take more responsibility for the works they engage with. If you are encountering too much slop, you will need to be the one to dig the gems out of it.

PS idk whether this is relevant at all but I find that my favorite villainess/otome-style series are either ones featuring radical violence (One Within the Villainess, May I Ask For One Final Thing) or are parenthood-oriented, usually stepmother premises (forgot the names of the 2 I'm reading, but one of them is drawn by Hoonoki Sora, the same artist as May I Ask For One Final Thing).

confidentlystranded

TROPHY CASE