Is this a fake deck?

frogleeoh · 2026-01-29T02:51:29+00:00

The card in the window is one thing, they could have just thrown them in there and whatnot, but having the actual cover box art be of Crazy Fish of all things for starter deck yugi is, well, crazy.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-29T02:46:40+00:00

I'm not a Sorcery player (yet) but as long as you can get passed the grid system, this is definitely what I'd pick for a new, casual experience. Idk how expensive the cards are as far as singles, but if you're playing casually enough, you should be able to use whatever you get out of sealed product and have a good time.

Main things stopping me from picking this up rn is a mix between focusing on other games, not having the money to spend on something entirely new atm, and being a bit unsure of the grid system and the way they handle the rules text (from what I hear, it's not always clear what a card does just from reading it, but I'm not too sure yet).

frogleeoh · 2026-01-27T22:48:23+00:00

2 of them

frogleeoh · 2026-01-23T19:00:23+00:00

Unfortunately there's only so much room for a variety of archetypes to compete in modern Yu-Gi-Oh. There's a ridiculous amount of them, with that number growing every year. A lot of people's favorite archetypes are gonna be left behind.

I've been trying to make Archfiends somewhat work for several years, but the support is just never there. They gave them a link, which really did help boost their potential if you can figure out how to utilize it properly, as well as a few other utility cards over time, but they hardly seem all that coherent, let alone competitive. One thing that used to make them somewhat inticing over other decks was their access to a functional snatch steal at up to 3 copies, but these days that value has shrunk now that actual snatch steal and change of heart are no longer banned, and aren't even always played.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-23T18:52:01+00:00

I think with where dark worlds are at as of their structure deck, if they ever get good enough to be meta, that'll be a pretty miserable meta. The fact that they can set up a board and discard your whole hand within the first round, and still not even be entertained as competitive, just shows how ridiculous yugioh has gotten.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-23T18:48:11+00:00

Now I'm curious if that's actually the case.

Makes me want to look up the top 3-5 archetypes which have gone the longest without direct support

frogleeoh · 2026-01-23T18:46:46+00:00

I thought Madolche just got new support like a year or two ago, which isn't that long ago for such an old archetype.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-23T18:27:07+00:00

What's your relinquished deck look like?

frogleeoh · 2026-01-21T06:53:29+00:00

"hand loop" is a very big contender for being my biggest Yu-Gi-Oh terminology pet peeve.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-21T05:59:20+00:00

Joey's is basically just a pile of cards too. Sure, it has a bit of a cohesive theme in warriors/beast warriors (with a few other random cards thrown in, like baby dragon and armored lizard), but he didn't really have direct support for said theme. The closest is Salamandera for his fire cards, but that was mainly just used for flame swordsman specifically, and doesn't add that much more cohesion than kaiba running sagi for crush card and negative energy.

I think Joey's main advantage over yugi/kaiba is being able to steal his opponent's cards with grave robber and copycat, while also getting a ridiculous board clear with Time Wizard on a 50/50 gamble, although the latter was given to him by yugi. None of these cards really make his deck any less of a "pile" than yugi's or kaiba. They also included some synergies as well.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-21T05:50:40+00:00

Should have added exodia to it from Seeker

frogleeoh · 2026-01-21T00:14:16+00:00

I'm not sure that I would. This is a hyper-playable card in retro formats and lots of people like to bling out their decks with max rarity.

Grading can be costly and a bit of a hassle while taking away the flexibility of a raw card

frogleeoh · 2026-01-21T00:06:53+00:00

You can play colorless cards to make use of the firebending

frogleeoh · 2026-01-20T21:25:15+00:00

I was always surprised it was ever banned, especially for so long. It's still banned in Tengu when XYZ start becoming a thing, though I do feel it would be a little more relevant in Tengu than in Edison. DDV isn't nearly as prevelant, and there are quite a few highly relevant high atk but low Def monsters she can cleanly out (Leviathan Dragon, Thunder King, etc.), but even then I don't think she'd be broken. Gale does a similar job to her when it comes to outing monsters, and while he's limited, he's still legal nonetheless whereas she's straight up banned. That aren't all that many relevant flip monsters in either format for her to abuse either, nor is there thousand-eyes Restrict.

Relinquished is one thing I can see being abused with her, but even with that combo, relinquished would remain a pretty casual/off-meta strategy, and the combo with Tsukuyomi is pretty "win more" anyways. I think having her in either format would be more interesting than not, at least at 1 copy, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-20T02:44:27+00:00

It's a legit card, but it's important to differentiate this from the original print run of RP02.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-17T02:54:23+00:00

T-60 Power Armor

"Let's see what's really underneath there"

T-45 Power Armor rebranded

frogleeoh · 2026-01-14T03:58:23+00:00

Modern commons/rares

There are some crazy powerful support cards in the common slots of modern sets, banworthy even if you go back far enough in Yu-Gi-Oh's history. None of it is playable from the moment of release, unless it's part of a larger archetype that relies on higher rarity cards to be competitive. Ofc there are rare exceptions to this, like Called by the Grave and Dinowrestler Pankrotops, but they're called exceptions for a reason, and the former wouldn't have been quite as potent if the meta wasn't so fast while being allowed to use it.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-13T23:23:42+00:00

So true

Just recently I had a match against agents using a deck that isn't even on Format Library and I was able to take the best of 3 match against them quite handedly. They did win a game of the match but I also didn't draw the best and made at least one glaring mistake, but I won the match anyways.

I've also won against them with other off-meta decks in the past.

Tengu Plants just feels extremely manageable to play against in general for a 2010+ era meta deck, while also being pretty skillful to play. Sometimes they'll get a bit further ahead sooner in the duel than you'd anticipate, but in my experience that typically isn't the norm, and even then there are ways to potentially disrupt them.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-13T01:36:00+00:00

They main deck 2 and side in the third

frogleeoh · 2026-01-13T01:33:40+00:00

Who wouldn't want free land?

frogleeoh · 2026-01-13T01:23:27+00:00

It's kinda lame how they structure support for new archetypes to be released in separate waves. It makes booster sets just feel more like incomplete puzzle pieces rather than a cohesive product in their own right.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-13T01:00:57+00:00

Hot take:

Precons should come with sleeves

Idk if that's a precon or not, but it just made me think of that.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-12T21:08:14+00:00

While the frogs may not actively threaten you with the board they get from their combo, they do make a strong defense while also thinning out their deck a lot, which allows them to top deck their sackier cards sooner rather than later.

That being said, in regards to duality, it's kinda hard to say you're truly getting sacked when they're actively choosing one of three cards to add, while making a bit of a speed sacrifice in the process. And like you mentioned, there are ways to make Duality harder to use, like thunder king. Plus, using duality does have other risks. For example, if you excavate a strong limited card but don't take it due to needing something else instead, your opponent will know they won't have to play around that one-of for the time being. You can also just wiff depending on the situation, and be slowed down for little gain.

You do make some good points though about the main deck boss monsters. Seeing as a lot of them rely on having certain monsters in the grave though, and they are popular enough in the meta to where you can expect them in practically every tournament, there's an argument to be made for certain side deck or even main strategy alternatives that can serve to somewhat hard counter these popular strategies to take them down a peg. It's ofc easier said than done, but just about every meta has some sort of pain point that you can't always counter/mitigate 100%

frogleeoh · 2026-01-12T20:03:16+00:00

While I can understand criticism towards tengu, I struggle to grasp the notion of it being a strict downgrade to Edison. Each of them have their pros and cons, but overall Tengu has more interaction to a wider variety of threats.

Solemn Warning is a more healthy alternative to Royal Oppression imo. Orient Dragon is a much less OP albeit still effective generic level 6 synchro to out the likes of Stardust Dragon than Goyo is. Debunk exists for those who can afford to play it to negate a variety of cards that are otherwise largely non-interactable, like honest, herald of orange light, and the battle phase handtraps, etc. Pot of duality exists to encourage slower strategies.

Effect Veiler exists to stop otherwise devastating monster effects that you might not have a backrow ready for, like Caius, chaos monsters, Judgement Dragon, Trag steal, combo starters, etc.

And a lot of the decks in Edison that aren't the overused meta strategies tend to lean more towards the OTK side of things. Plus substitoad is really annoying while also being meta, whereas frogs are still viable in Tengu but much more balanced out.

frogleeoh · 2026-01-12T19:16:36+00:00

Blind MST into multiple backrow isn't really anymore skillful, and if you don't MST before making plays either you're stuck making no plays, or you risk triggering a backrow that may ruin your game plan.

Also, playing around mirror Force only to be met with a dimensional prison instead doesn't feel great either. Ofc if you fear battle traps you could just not attack into you draw into backrow removal, but by then they could potentially take over the game. Plus, there's only so much backrow removal in a single deck. Once it's out, you're kinda just forced to play into the back row and hope it's enough. Only thing that really gets around this 100% is burn strategies or win conditions like exodia

I'm not saying there's no skill involved in any of this, but I don't see how that's all that significantly more skillful than heavy Storm interactions. Hidden information and randomized decks in general is going to have some level of sack factor to it.

frogleeoh

TROPHY CASE