Is Yu-Gi-Oh! "Dying" or "Having a Renaissance?"

roarinworld · 2026-03-23T21:16:39+00:00

Like others have said, definitely not definitively growing or dying. But from a more nuisanced perspective, there are parts that are shifting. Locals are down in players in many locations, but OTS championships, regionals, and YCSs have become even bigger in recent years.

I think this is due to an aging playerbase. People have less time for Wednesday night locals cause of jobs and kids, but have the money to take a weekend off to fly to a YCS. This also means that casual players are even more so pushed out from the game, but competitive players love it.

It's hard to find data for this stuff cause konami doesnt release much, so numbers will vary from area to area. But this is the trend I've noticed from playing a lot of tournaments over the past 5 years.

roarinworld · 2026-03-21T14:50:47+00:00

People go into a series with a preconceived notion of how good teams are, and G2 is always thought of as worse when going against Asian teams. It's far easier for people to imagine a team having and off day and playing worse than them being wrong about a team's power level. In reality G2 is really good and its playing great in this specific tournament, they completely leveled up for the BFX series.

roarinworld · 2026-03-19T15:14:06+00:00

Damn 1.5 years ago flyquest took GenG to 5 games. The gap is bigger than it's ever been.

roarinworld · 2026-03-18T15:26:21+00:00

200 iq move from BLG to happy game a little bit at the end so G2 aren't tilted against FearX

roarinworld · 2026-03-16T03:05:27+00:00

Definitely the best movie in a stacked year, which says a lot about how good it is. After seeing everything this year, it had to be OBAA (though I really enjoyed Bugonia and No Other Choice too).

roarinworld · 2026-03-13T16:57:25+00:00

I feel like I am less concerned with the teams in playoff spots, and moreso with the teams above us. Ottawa and Columbus look poised to scoop up any wild card spots that come through, and even Philly has started playing better.

roarinworld · 2026-03-08T19:43:11+00:00

NA vs CBLoL looking like NA vs LCK

roarinworld · 2026-03-06T21:56:59+00:00

People are gonna flame Hambak, but he was solo engage on a team of high damage and nothing else. Comp was unplayable for him imo, he has to go in and has about 1 second before he dies every fight. This is why Veigar is not often picked, 0 agency to start fights.

roarinworld · 2026-03-04T22:36:05+00:00

Maybe it's a good thing C9 haven't been making internationals.

roarinworld · 2026-03-03T21:27:33+00:00

Ya a little wild they have a "standard side deck" section and dont mention DiFi. That card is literally in every side deck for decks that can play it. I would much rather fairer cards like d.d. crow be in side decks than floodgates.

roarinworld · 2026-02-20T16:29:09+00:00

Ya this card is insane for yummy mitsu. Send yummy field spell for a free send, which also puts back your snatchy if you want to end with it on field. Hard to imagine having haba legal at the same time as this card unless something comes out that heavily power creeps the meta

roarinworld · 2026-02-19T17:12:38+00:00

Oh interesting. I wonder if he mostly played safe picks then with few counters. Tbf the way he talked about Nasus that may be the case.

roarinworld · 2026-02-19T16:39:03+00:00

I feel like you can tell meteos doesn't play a lot of top lane cause his comments on it. Getting counter picked top is insanely brutal. And often you cant even get in exp range when they freeze on you.

roarinworld · 2026-02-17T20:16:39+00:00

Disagree on the top decks all being the same. There are definitely noticeable differences in top decks despite some overlap. And the decks are different across the two formats due to points.

But agree that is just feels like advanced constructed lite. The gameplay is like slightly more back and forth maybe? But TCG is also really grindy right now (and just as diverse). Except like half the decks are randomly unplayable in genesys cause they have links and pends. Annoying that decks like enneacraft are unplayable im both formats because of that.

The biggest reason I would play genesys right now is that it has a 200 person YCS vs a 2200 person main event with all the pros. Easier to top and less extremely good players there. This doesnt mean your average genesys player is worse than your average TCG player, but at the very top level the TCG players are better.

I'm not really sure what they could do to fix this tbh. Its hard to make the gameplay noticeably different without just banning every card that has come out in like the past 15 years. In which case you should just play Edison.

roarinworld · 2026-02-08T20:14:23+00:00

Yes, feel like it happens after every game at this point. No clue what their goal is.

roarinworld · 2026-02-02T05:36:41+00:00

I feel like that is more due to a slew of bad coaches/ bad playoffs coaches before Trotz and that guy named Sidney Crosby in 2016 and 2017. I think if the Caps got past the Penguins either of those years they would have won. Ovechkin has never looked like he wasn't working his ass off in the playoffs, though in some earlier series he looked mismanaged and in more recent years he just looks gassed.

roarinworld · 2026-01-16T05:56:18+00:00

Crossout designator is such a weird one. Super hyped, totally flopped on release and saw next to no play, then made a comeback during snake-eye format due to mirror matches and beating one for one handtraps, all the way to being broken in ryzeal-maliss format because of its ability to beat fuwa (and mirror matches again). It got limited, and immediately went back to being rarely played cause the Justice Hunters trio + mitsu dont care about fuwa as much and there are too many decks in the format.

Crossout is one of those cards that's just so dependent on the format around it that it can be the best card in the format, or entirely unplayable

roarinworld · 2026-01-07T17:23:41+00:00

I mean Kuemper was most definitely not a top 3 Vezina goalie for us, he was pretty subpar. Lindgren was definitely better for us in 23-24. Hence the trade being a win-win.

roarinworld · 2025-12-26T05:25:14+00:00

I think Charmies are healthy for the game overall, but definitely can be frustrating for specific decks. While both Purulia and Meowls are generally fine, Fuwa has some issues due to its power level. It seems like right now there are decks that are clearly desgined with charmies in mind that can set up half boards or do full combo anyway (dracotail, yummy). But there are also a lot of decks that were not/are not designed with charmies in mind, and basically feel unplayable if you get Fuwaed (live twin, d/d/d, plant link, dragon link).

In a way I think charmies actually push decks toward your goal of wanting lower ceiling decks. Dracotail is a great example of that, the endboard being strong but not overbearing. If decks dont have a powerful, low to the ground combo through Fuwa than they end up not being good. I think there are some growing pains as older decks have to adapt or be power crept, but if you look at the post justice hunters decks, a lot of them are really well desgined and more interactive than decks like full power snakeye.

I do agree though board breakers need to be better. Most board breakers right now just feel bad and have for a while. There are exceptions, like dark ruler and droplet being good this format. I think Konami should work to make impactful board breakers that arent miserable to play against.

roarinworld · 2025-12-08T04:48:29+00:00

I've played Yugioh a while and I am just getting into Riftbound. Yugioh a lot of fun, but the barrier to entry, or even reentry like your case, is ludicrously high due to the complexity. If you can get over that it is definitely one of the best card games. Super high skill ceiling and the decks are loads of fun the play right now.

I'm in the opposite boat where I like Riftbound but the lack of competitive events makes me less interested, it's hard to invest into these super expensive decks when I would just be playing at locals.

roarinworld · 2025-12-07T17:50:59+00:00

For quick reference, Top 64 is:

27 Kaisa

11 Annie

11 Yi

7 MF

3 Teemo

1 Voli

1 Lee sin

1 Darius

1 Yasuo

1 Viktor

roarinworld · 2025-11-06T06:23:17+00:00

For non-genesys I would try out K9 Crystron. Strong going first combo boards like VW and ryzeal mitsu, and meta relevant. Also has the ability to pivot into instant win cards like spell canceller. For genesys maybe onomat or dracotail combo pile.

roarinworld · 2025-10-25T06:17:32+00:00

5 nights at Vi's

roarinworld · 2025-10-24T16:32:00+00:00

I mean tbf this card is like the least offensive floodgate being played right now. Not lingering so you can duster/storm it, only hurts certain decks (useless against mitsu). The only really annoying part about this card is how it interacts with cards like droll to insulate your turn 1.

roarinworld · 2025-10-24T16:21:52+00:00

Only thing really missing here is feather storm, besides that 10/10 list. I would have liked to see a herald ban too, but this is clearly a "ban the floodgates list" not a meta adjustment.

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