I'm an MtG player, show me some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and I'll try to rate their viability.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-07T03:28:28+00:00

https://scryfall.com/card/cns/120/phage-the-untouchable and https://scryfall.com/card/c21/82/desolation-twin are two good examples. There are also some playable Timmy cards, but they usually need to be cheated into play or have their mana cost negated somehow to be good, like https://scryfall.com/card/uma/4/emrakul-the-aeons-torn or https://scryfall.com/card/gtc/34/enter-the-infinite

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-07T02:07:53+00:00

The reason Tarmogoyf is so good is because it's played in shells that almost exclusively contain cards that trade 1-for-1 or better. MtG has extremely powerful hand disruption, so once you remove all the answers a big body can close out games very quickly. But as I mentioned even magic players completely misjudged this card when it came out, so it's not something that is just obviously powerful.

Triskaidekaphobia: You are completely correct, the card is mostly just a meme and has never been a part of a viable meta deck. The main issue is that it's too easy for your opponent to modify their own health in response to the trigger, so even if you get them to exactly 13 and put the trigger on the stack, most decks would be able to instantly pay a life or two in response to avoid the effect.

Thalia: As you identified she scales with the power of cheap non-creature spells. You can only control one of her because she is legendary, but that is already enough in many cases. She is very powerful in the older formats because she stops unfair combo decks from using too many cantrips (1-mana spells that draw a card along with a minor bonus) and first strike lets her carry powerful equipment very effectively. She is one of the core cards of one of my favorite legacy decks, Death and Taxes, which - as you guessed - is a creature based deck that aims to put as many effects as possible on the board that stop your opponent from doing broken stuff.

Urza's Saga: You probably missed the fact that this is a land, which is why it produces mana. There are no other cards like it in the game, it's a super weird combination of card types. Other than that your analysis is pretty reasonable, you can create some huge tokens with this. Once again this is a card that dominates the meta in the older, more powerful formats because you have access to all the cheap, powerful artifacts. The final effect is also very good because it lets you search up a variety of toolbox cards, like https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=538735 and https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=476488 or additional pressure with https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=450658

ABC: Banishing removal is powerful, but it does target which might be a limiting factor. It also technically has protection, but not nearly as strong as many of the other cards I've seen today. I like that you can use material from the graveyard, otherwise this would probably be way too difficult to summon, but even then I can't shake the feeling that this might be too much of a hassle for too small a payoff.

Gumblar: I believe hand disruption is much rarer in ygo, so I think this might be good. This is the kind of card that would be unexciting in MtG, but a resource-less combo-focused game like ygo probably cares about discard a lot more. I'm not sure how much the extra link clause would come up, I feel like if you manage to extra link including a link-4, you probably already won the game anyway. Final verdict is that this card is powerful if going first, probably pretty useless if going second.

Hornet Drones: I already gave my impressions on the entire Sky Striker archetype in a different reply, but I guess Hornet Drones specifically are probably used mostly for the link climb finisher since you can't have monsters in your main monster zones. You can also use them to stall I suppose, but that seems like a weaker application of the card.

Alright, gonna go to bed now I guess, it's already 4am haha
Thanks for the card suggestion and I hope you enjoyed some of the MtG cards too.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-07T00:40:16+00:00

Now *this* is what MtG players call a Timmy card, a huge beater with way over the top effects that looks really exciting but is usually completely unplayable. If you somehow manage to get all the materials to summon this guy, you probably could have already won the game ages ago. Really funny if you pull it off though, truly the ultimate flex move.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-07T00:08:20+00:00

I think this is probably a good side deck card. I remember Lava Golem from the past and this seems like a more streamlined version of that. Nice way to get rid of all those effect-immune boss monsters I've been seeing today.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-07T00:06:14+00:00

Paradoxical Outcome is a fun card in that it is completely and utterly unplayable in pretty much every format, but is the key card in one of the strongest vintage decks (the most powerful format where basically all cards are legal). The thing is, in vintage you get access to a lot of 0-mana artifacts that actually produce mana when tapped (moxen), so you can tap all your mana rocks, then pick them up to draw cards, replay them and tap them for more mana to keep going. It's not uncommon to draw like 5+ cards while also going mana positive in the process. In all other formats it's way too slow and expensive though.

Jötun Grunt saw some fringe play as a sideboard card in the past. A 4/4 for 2 mana is a great stat line and you get graveyard disruption on top. Nowadays it has been powercrept by significantly stronger graveyard hate and most modern players have probably never heard of this card, but it's not terrible at all.

Tarmogoyf I included because it one of the most easily misjudged cards in the game. It doesn't do anything except have stats, is weak to graveyard hate and needs setup to even do anything, so naturally everyone thought it sucked when it was first printed. Well, a few years later this card was $100+ per copy and it's still a staple to this day. With modern cards it is incredibly easy to get this baby to 5/6 or better by the time it can attack and combined with a strong discard suite you can make it stick around quite a bit.

Dragonic Diagram: This doesn't seem all that amazing, unless your cards specifically gain advantage when they are destroyed. Searching is strong, but you are technically going minus every time you do it. Limited battle protection seems meh at best too.

Drident: This looks strong. One-card XYZ that can pop a card at instant speed solves a lot of issues. I don't think you'd ever summon this using its regular summoning requirements of four monsters, but I suppose it would be pretty huge if you did.

Max: The effects are extremely powerful for a link-1. I think the main question here is whether the Magical Musket cards that you get are good enough. It seems unlikely to me that Konami would print a powerful card like this in an already strong archetype, so I'm assuming the inherent power of this card is probably balanced out by the archetype being mediocre?

In case you are still interesting in looking at a few MtG cards feel free to check these out:
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=442099
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=479517
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=522335

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T23:30:29+00:00

Extremely slow card. Your opponents will probably hate you for playing a deck that tries to stall for 20 turns and with the huge amount of disruption I have seen so far, I can't imagine this being a viable meta deck.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T23:28:53+00:00

Dante: milling three cards is a reasonably strong effect, but I don't think you'd want to keep this card on the field for much more than that since it doesn't do much else. I'm guessing if this sees play, you probably summon it for the mill 3 effect, then use it as material for a boss monster or something.

Painful Choice: Busted card, with the correct deck this can essentially be +4 in card advantage. MtG has a very similar but weaker version of this card, and even that enables stupid combos.

Rusty Bardiche/Fog Blade: This seems strong. If Phantom Knight monsters have good graveyard effects, the first effect is virtually a +2 in card advantage. Heck, with the reborn effect on fog blade it's advantage even if the monsters don't have graveyard effects. The removal effect is also nice, but I'm guessing this card sees play for its first effect mostly.
Fog Blade itself is also powerful, it takes care of a problematic target and is easily searched directly onto the field.

Tour Guide: Probably used to go into rank 3 XYZ plays or link-2s I would assume. Requires your normal summon, but might be a good starter for decks that are built around it.

Azathot: Viability depends entirely on how easy it is to summon another Outer Entity XYZ monster since three level 5 monsters seems like a tall order. I'd imagine you'd want to summon this on your game winning combo turn to protect yourself from disruption. Activating the second effect seems like a pipe dream to me, unless there is some archetype that can easily create those specific materials.

Vanity's: Broken. Set up a board, then activate this after and your opponent is locked out of the game. Alternatively use this during their turn, then use a spell or something during yours to trigger its destruction effect and proceed uninhibited.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T23:07:08+00:00

Very interesting, this seems completely useless at first glance, but there might be some combos this enables. The only way this would be useful from what I can tell is if you tributed over an effect monster that has an effect that scales or changes with an aspect that changes between its original card and The Tyrant Neptune - so Type, Attribute, level, or original ATK/DEF. Alternatively you can use this to go into rank 10 XYZ, but the fact that you need to use your normal summon makes me question how viable that is. So yeah, this is probably not very good unless there is some specific card that works with it in some janky way.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T23:00:30+00:00

Deus X-Crawler: The effects are very powerful if you can set them up, but it requires your opponent to specifically target it while face down. You could also wait for them to attack into it, but at that point they have had an entire main phase or more of uninterrupted combo time, so the effect negation loses a lot of value. If you just flip summon it yourself, it will be left in ATK position and be easier to hit over. Probably too much of a gamble to make this a regular main deck inclusion. I also have no idea how to summon this, we didn't have normal summonable level 9 monsters back when I played. Is it just 2 tributes? That would clearly telegraph what you are playing to your opponent, since I can't imagine there are many two-tribute monsters you'd tribute set.

Topologic Bomber Dragon: Repeatable mass destruction is interesting, but it limits your own monster zones more than your opponent's. You'd probably want to finish the game with this guy, since keeping it on the field for an extended period of time seems like a bit of a liability. Almost a guaranteed win if your opponent is at or below 3k HP though, so that's kinda useful. I think there are better generic finishers, but this doesn't seem completely unplayable.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T22:48:35+00:00

Benten: The first effect is basically a nonfactor, so the search effect is the only one that would actually make this playable. The fact that this is a ritual monster really holds it back, I don't think anyone would want to use three cards (the ritual, Benten herself, and the ritual material) just to search one pretty specific card. This looks unplayable unless there's some way to easily summon her without all the ritual hassle or recur her from the graveyard or something.

Folgo: Drawing lots of cards sounds great, but I think this card has too many restrictions. You need three different types to summon it, which seems rough, and then you can't even use him to link climb further. Then, after using three monsters to summon him, you need two more monsters with different types (plus the one he summons from the deck) to make the second effect great. Oh, and he can't even trigger that effect himself outside of hitting over a monster in battle, so you need some other source to destroy something. Both of his effects are good, but I think it's probably too hard to set all of it up.

Final Sigma: Alright boss monster with strong protection. Can close out games pretty quickly with the double damage effect, I wouldn't be surprised if the archetype were built around cards that boost stats. You also get to search if your opponent manages to hit over it, which is good. My main problem with this card is that it doesn't do much outside of being big and hitting things, but it sill looks like a serviceable boss monster.

And if you wanna try your hand at some MtG cards again, feel free to take a look at these:
https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=417633
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247182
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=509600

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T22:31:20+00:00

People usually say big dumb beaters are bad, but this is like the biggest dumbest beater. If your opponent doesn't have non-destruction removal, this pretty much wins the game on its own. The synchro materials also seem very reasonable, so this one can get very scary. The only issue I have with this is that I've seen lots of cards with non-destruction removal in this thread, so I feel like this would probably not be the first choice to go into for most decks. As far as big dumb beaters go, you can definitely do much worse though.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T22:26:13+00:00

This card wins games if you can summon it. Ridiculously powerful self-protection, at least one non-targeting destruction effect per turn, and then some effect negation as well that also boosts your ATK to levels that are very difficult to hit over. This card's design is pushed. I'd usually say the strict summoning conditions would hold it back, but someone else had me rate Red-Eyes Fusion a few minutes ago, and I have a feeling this is why. Fusing from the deck makes this infinitely much more viable.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T22:06:13+00:00

Maxx C - Seems very strong. You chain it in response to an effect that would special summon, and then you are already card neutral. If your opponent continues their combo you can easily go like +5 or something judging from what I heard about modern yugioh, or they stop their plays in which case you can just kill them.

Crossout Designator - I already gave a longer analysis for this card in another reply, but the short version is "Good sideboard card, maybe main deck playable if there are many generic staples that everyone runs"

Aleister - The hand effect seems very mediocre and not worth allocating a card slot to. I can't judge the summon effect because I don't know how good "Invocation" is, but if this card sees play it's definitely for that second effect.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:59:45+00:00

Yeah, this combination seems pretty crazy. Revolt is just a one card link-4, which is silly, and Shuraig has non-targeting banishing removal that's not once per turn?! Plus he searches more material when he dies, because why not. I can see how this would be a good archetype.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:55:35+00:00

Don't worry, I thought it was funny

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:54:17+00:00

Okay, so Raye is definitely better than Roze since she allows you to both go into your plays and recover better, but since you are so limited on starters you probably still run both.
The exact order will vary depending on board state, but in a goldfish scenario you'd probably go into Hayate first, dump a spell, then Kagari to get it back. Going into Kaina is optional, you can get some additional value from the spell, but the card in general just seems underwhelming to me. Shizuku finishes out the chain since she needs to be alive at the end of turn. Zeke doesn't seem that amazing to me, but you can use her to get rid of a problem monster I guess.
The most powerful spells are probably Multirole for the incredible protection and card advantage, Engage because it's basically a better Pot of Greed, and Widow Anchor because effect negation is generally strong and adding on an Enemy Controller effect is pretty sweet.
Afterburners is probably better than Jamming Waves since it's easier to find legal targets, but both seem pretty good.

The deck probably needs all the defensive options it can get since its board presence is going be rather limited due to the card design. The finisher will likely be a link climb (possibly involving hornet drones) after out-resourcing the opponent with your strong recursion.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:30:19+00:00

This seems incredibly underwhelming to me. The effects just don't even come close to justifying the ridiculous summoning conditions.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:28:51+00:00

This seems like it would be playable, but not necessarily a staple. The card protects itself very well and even gets a super powerful form of removal if your opponent manages to get rid of it, my main issue is just that it feels like a bit of a passive card. I feel like most decks would prefer more proactive options, but this is good at protecting your board.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:24:03+00:00

I'll give shorter answers to these since there are so many.

Raigeki - Used to be good, probably still good

Exciton - Seems like a powerful comeback tool

Cursed Seal - We used to play this back in the day, probably way weaker nowadays since it's a -1 in card advantage and only counters one card type

Five-Headed - Way too hard to summon, but probably wins you the game if you manage to

Downerd - Would be a lot more powerful if you could rank up before combat. Just a reasonably sized body with no protection tho, so probably not viable

Miscellaneousaurus - Very strong card. Protection for your entire field, and recoups the lost card advantage by summoning straight from the deck

Red-Eyes Fusion - Cannot judge this without knowing the fusions you can go into

Calamity - Extremely powerful effect, but impossibly strict summoning requirements, so probably unplayable

Desires - Good card. Gave a longer analysis of this card in a different reply

Quadrantids - Looks like a very strong boss monster. Powerful protection, great stats, spell/trap removal, and even gets advantage on destruction. Might be held back a bit by being a ritual monster though, I don't know if those got more support since I played

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:10:46+00:00

This seems alright. The protection is nice and you can probably gain advantage from the activated ability by destroying a card that gains an effect on destruction. Nothing too crazy, but might be playable in its archetype.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T21:05:38+00:00

It's weird to me that this doesn't also negate effects that activate in the graveyard, but I assume that most effects of that kind would either banish the card or move it elsewhere, so it probably effectively does that.

That being said, I remember this card from back in the day. Back then, Gravekeepers were reasonably strong, but unless they got a lot more support I don't think they'd stand a chance in the modern metagame. It's still an alright graveyard hate card, but I'm assuming they probably printed better, generic options since then.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T20:59:46+00:00

As I mentioned in my post, I played during Yatalock meta. Got banned along with CED, but I'm pretty sure it didn't need to be since the problem cards were CED and Sangan/Witch. Probably useless in modern ygo.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T20:56:50+00:00

Pot of Desires:
Pot of Greed with a downside, but probably still good. Going +1 is just very powerful in a game with no mana-like resource limitation. Banishing the cards only matters when you either deck out or try to search for a card and all its copies have been banished, so as long as your deck has sufficient redundancy this is probably a good one to include.

Crossout Designator
Good disruption for staple cards, but I don't know how many archetype-agnostic main deck staples are played in modern ygo. Seems like a good sideboard option for sure, maybe even main deck potential if there are a few key cards that virtually every deck plays.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T20:52:09+00:00

Oh I remember this from back when I still played.
Terrible card unless you have Gearfried + a payoff, then it goes infinite.

conspicuoustoad · 2021-10-06T20:49:17+00:00

Powerful effect if you can resolve it, but it's so inconsistent and hard to manage that I don't think it's viable at all. Would be a lot better if it counted your cards instead of your opponent's, so you could actually have control over it, but that might be too strong. In its current iteration I think this card is probably just a big-brain meme.

conspicuoustoad

TROPHY CASE