#ocg konami killing me with the new cards

[unfunny-ness]

Ok ok ok so yesterday they announce new synchron and signer dragons stuff and today they hit me with a new flame wingman. I'm actually gonna go insane god I love it so much and it makes it easier to search favorite hero or favorite contact and also the artwork and name are so freaking good I think konami wants to murder me lol

[qwertystop]

Broader Balance Implications of Time-Rending Morganite

So, there's been a new Yu-Gi-Oh card announced in the OCG (the Japanese version of the game), "Time-Rending Morganite", and... well, I'm only a casual player, I can't judge on this from a balance perspective, but from a game-design angle, this card is huge.

Apply these effects for the rest of this Duel. ● You cannot activate monster effects in the hand. ● Draw 2 cards instead of 1 for your normal draw during your Draw Phase. ● You can conduct up to 2 Normal Summons/Sets each turn, not just 1. You can banish this card from your GY and discard 1 "Time-Rending Morganite"; this turn, your opponent cannot activate monster effects when you Normal Summon a monster.

(image and translation per Yugipedia, 2023-01-07)

This card reads to me as indicative of two or three things, from a broader game-design perspective. Details under the cut, but TLDR:

It looks like Konami wants the game to slow down, or at least they want to make slower strategies viable. This card tries to make "I'll hold them off and slowly charge up/wear them down" work in a game where comboing through nearly half your deck for a one-turn kill on your first or second turn is routine, and they might actually have pulled it off.

They've found an entirely novel way to do this without either A: banning huge swathes of the game (all the big combos, which are a large part of the game's appeal for many players) or B: restricting this slow strategy to one very specific archetype of cards (the usual way they've introduced new playstyles in the past).

That new tool could also be used to support many other cards and styles of play, where the cards present a fantasy but cannot make it work within the constraints of the game rules and of physical cardstock.

I read Time-Rending Morganite as an effort by Konami to bring back an older style of play, when games took more than three turns and doing things on your opponent's turn was mostly the domain of Traps.

First off: It rewards slower strategies. It makes slow strategies stronger, not by making the wall itself harder to break, but by giving the player who successfully does hold their opponent off more resources to use the longer they keep their wall up. The reward from playing TRM scales geometrically: Every new turn, you get another extra card and summon. This directly counteracts the problem that every card you spend on blocking your opponent from beating you is a resource *not* spent on getting yourself closer to victory; "I haven't lost yet" isn't the same as "I'll win soon", but TRM makes "I'm buying time to build up strength" possible by giving you more cards to work with, so you can trade one-for-one every turn and still come out ahead. TRM "pays" for this by preventing the player from using monster effects in hand – that's hand traps, sure, but it's also monsters that Special Summon themselves from the hand, or discard themselves to search other things out of your deck. Those are some of the biggest ways the game got to be as fast as it is: the ability to rapidly turn your whole hand into disrupting your opponent's board, building your own board, and pulling more stuff that you can also immediately use.

Second: It lets you opt into this new-old paradigm while also, to a limited extent, forcing your opponent to do the same. If you play three copies of it, you can stop your opponent from using Quick monster effects to mess with you – hand traps but also on-board negates and such. That only holds for two turns, but if your opponent is playing a current-meta-style deck with lots of hand traps and on-board negator monsters, two turns is huge.

Third: It shows Konami is willing to bring out some pretty big guns to do this. They're not banning all hand-traps and self-specialers, they're not putting out a new Master Rule revision with only two specials per turn, but they are saying "here's a card that, when you play it, for the rest of the game you're on new rules". It's not quite unprecedented, but before this, "for the rest of this Duel" effects were things like Sales Ban or Sekka's Light, large permanent restrictions for high-impact one-off effects. Players can opt in to playing on a modified ruleset, in a way that's not locking that ruleset into a specific archetype designed around it (like Flower Cardians or other entirely-different-game archetypes).

Fourth: This is a new tool that they can continue to use. They could make a series of cards like it, other "Morganite" spells (if you need an archetype name) that have you make other permanent changes to your rules for the rest of the game, to give boosts to other strategies that don't have enough raw card-advantage power to work in the current meta. This one does this for the old classic slower game with less mid-turn interference where the Normal Summon was crucial. Just to spitball a few others (note that these are probably wildly imbalanced, and definitely not written in strict PSCT-compliant phrasing; the point is to get the general idea across):

Fusion toolboxes like Elemental Heroes, too reliant on getting specific combinations and unable to justify Extra Deck space for hyperspecific niches: You can no longer summon non-Fusion monsters from your Extra Deck, but as many times as you like each turn, you can Fusion Summon a Fusion Monster from your Extra Deck or GY (no forcing you to choose between having enough copies of one thing and having enough variety, don't think of this as a separate card, it's the combination of several other cards but unfortunately we have to print it on something) that names a specific monster for at least one material, and names a monster or archetype for all of their materials (i.e. no generic materials), using materials from the hand and/or field (i.e. infinite Polymerizations, except without breaking when-you-play-a-spell triggers). Once per turn you can use one material from your deck for the Fusion Summon of such a non-generic Fusion Monster. When a Fusion Monster summoned through either of these effects leaves the field return it to the Extra Deck.

All the different upgrade-ish monsters, where the concept is clearly "the monster you already have gets better in these specific circumstances", but the implementation is limited by the need to print that somewhere, so the better version is a separate card that takes up space in your deck but is useless if you draw it (for example, "Lv" and "Assault Mode" monsters): Once per turn, search your deck for a a monster that cannot be Normal Summoned and can only be Special Summoned by a specific procedure that it describes, and add it to your hand. Once per turn, if you draw such a monster, you may reveal it, search your deck for a monster that is specifically named by its effect or that specifically names it, and add that to your hand.

[darkzorua100]

Geez, I’m starting to think I might be psychic. Second time now I’ve hit the nail on the head when it came to the summaries. At least for 56 anyway. 57 I didn’t see coming at all since we already had this duel and I didn’t think we were going to get a rematch for Playmaker vs Bohman at all unless it was going to be a tag duel with Playmaker and Soulburner vs Bohman and Haru. I mean, it makes sense in a way since Playmaker thinks that Bohman still has Jin’s consciousness, which he doesn’t, but it still seems way to soon for a rematch. Playmaker has only had two duels this season: Bohman, then Blood Shepherd, and now Bohman again. Really don’t know how to feel about this in terms of dueling action but I think we could be learning more about Bohman during this episode and 58 if this duel continues into that episode which is going to be interesting just to figure out how screwed up his mind truly is because of all the memories rewrites. Plus, if he is one of the Lost Children, I can see it being confirmed during this duel. 

Now onto the big topic: Soulburner vs Blue Girl confirmed for 56 with my guess it is going to start at the end of 55. Yep knew this was coming a mile away with how Soulburner has been following Playmaker’s season 1 pattern. If the pattern continues to hold true, he should be dueling Revolver next or one of the big bads of the season. Maybe Haru or the shadow guy maybe?

However the thing I wasn’t expecting is that Aoi, as Blue Girl, is still using Trickstars. Okay, I knew it was a long shot on her using a Water archetype but I was convinced she was going to be using a new archetype because of the whole new Blue Girl identity. In my opinion, this is just really stupid. I get it from the card game perspective. Trickstars are the top deck at the moment in the TCG when they are combined with the Sky Striker archetype and I believe they are still doing well in the OCG as well regardless of the fact that Trickstar Reincarnation is at 1 for them. There was no way in hell Konami was going to allow the writers to have Aoi switch archetypes considering she is their cash cow at the moment but when you are looking at it from a writing standpoint, what was the actual point of her assuming the Blue Girl identity in the first place? Blue Girl was made for her to go under cover but she isn’t actually hiding the fact that she is Blue Angel when you allow her to keep using the same archetype!

I swear to god, if Soulburner figures out that Blue Girl is Blue Angel just because of the fact that she is still using Trickstars, I’m going to face palm so hard because Aoi, you walked right into that one.

Other then that stupid complained of mime, I have been looking forward to this duel for a while now and I can’t wait to see how it plays out. Of course, we all know Soulburner is going to win because as long as he has Flame, he can’t lose unless the plot is heading in the direction where the Ignises are starting to get captured for something, but I am very interested to see how he is going to bullsh*t his way out of this. We have a Fire deck vs the literal burning you to death deck and when you really think about it, Soulburner shouldn’t be able to use his Skill. Burning Draw drops his life points to 100 and if Blue Girl has Lycoris on the field for example, he literally is going to lose just by using his Skill. Just anything he is going to do is going to burn him so unless he pulls out a monster that negates Burn Damage or instead makes him gain Life Points instead, in RL, Takeru should honestly lose this duel.

Well calling it now, Soulburner is going to summon a Fusion Monster that does one of those two effects because there is no way in hell he can use Burning Draw without it killing himself.

As for Blue Girl’s side of things, I can’t wait to see how the writers are going to make Trickstars lose again. Again best deck for a reason and all the writers are doing is showing that Aoi is a terrible Trickstar player for anyone that plays the game competitively. Geez, if they are just making Aoi continue to play Trickstars as Blue Girl just for the card sells, they aren’t doing a very good job of convincing people to play them if she continues to lose with them. The summary did however say that Blue Girl is going to be using some new tactics so maybe she is going to using a different Extra Deck summoning as well. I can see Trickstars getting any of them besides Xyz since they don’t have many monsters that share the same levels.

Or, you know, Aoi finally got herself a play set of Droll & Lock Bird during the three month time skip and is now putting them to use. Very doubtful but I would laugh my ass off if she actually did pull off the Reincarnation lock. Soulburner’s reaction to that would be gold XD

The interactions between these two is what I’m really working forward to. If Akira told Aoi that Soulburner is one of the Lost Children, I wonder how she is going to react to him considering her reaction when she found out about Playmaker’s backstory. Then there’s Soulburner and once he finds out about Blue Girl being Blue Angel, this guy is just going to be fanboying like crazy. I feel like this duel is going to be something similar to Selena vs Yugo and that’s just going to be amazing.

There’s also the fact that they could be Speed Dueling in a windstorm still because of Windy and considering from the preview of 55 showed that Blue Girl looked to have fallen off her board already because of the wind, I can honestly see if happening again dueling this duel with Soulburner saving her. Does that look good on Aoi’s character? Nope but that would still be adorable regardless. However that might just me being biased because I’m really liking the idea of Aoi/Blue Angel/Blue Girl x Takeru/Soulburner.

And speaking of the whole Aoi situation, I seen some people not happy about this duel since Aoi is definitely going to lose and that just goes back to the whole females getting terrible treatment in Yu-Gi-Oh. However, I look at it this way. After this duel, Aoi has officially dueled three of the Lost Children: Yusaku/Playmaker, Spectre, and Takeru/Soulburner. No one else at this point has dueled all of the confirmed Lost Children (Jin doesn’t count until he duels). I feel like that’s an accomplishment on its own and she did put up some memorable fights against them, regardless of the fact that she did lose to Playmaker and Spectre. Plus, look at it like this, if something should happen to the boys, like they go hivemind for example because of their Ignises, Aoi has the connections to them to at least free one of them from their control, giving her the big win she truly deserves. Of course, that’s just speculation at this point, who knows if that plot line will actually happen, but she does have the connections to do something. But no seriously, if she doesn’t get her rematch with Spectre, I will be very disappointed and I will so be fixing that in my Dark Signer AU for sure.

So yeah, I’ve got a lot of expectations for this duel and I can’t wait to see it play out next week. Same for what is going to lead into this duel during episode 55 which I’m very much looking forward to that as well. 

[entergamingxp]

Link Evolution’s New Content Makes the Series’ Best Game Even Better

April 2, 2020 11:30 AM EST

With the console release of Link Evolution and a new content update on Switch, Konami has made one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! games even better.

The problem with Yu-Gi-Oh! games, generally speaking, is that they always get outdated a few months after release, due to new content being added to the card game on a regular basis. Because of this, these games can launch without up-to-date content, which is sorely missed by the community. The new update for Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution is looking to change that. The developer has, seemingly, attempted to make the most up-to-date version of the game possible, and for all intents and purposes, they have succeeded.

After the new free update for the Switch version and the game’s release on other consoles, Link Evolution now has a ton more content than it did before. First and foremost, not only are there more duels in the Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS campaign, but EVERY duel from the show is there (as far as I can tell). From Playmaker’s first duel with Revolver (I refuse to call him by his English name) to Soulburner’s introduction (my favorite character in the show by far) all the way to Playmaker’s final duel with Ai: everything is seemingly here and it’s a blast to play through.

“Link Evolution now has a ton more content than it did before.”

That being said, there are definitely some difficulty spikes. The duels against Ghost Girl are notoriously hard. It took multiple attempts for me on both the PS4 and Switch versions of the game to beat her and even then, I barely scraped by. I even used decks that have the potential to FTK (First Turn Kill) to no avail. These duels are the only REAL difficulty spikes, but they are certainly worth noting.

The only major complaint I have when it comes to the new VRAINS duels is the fact that just like before, there are absolutely no cutscenes to speak of in this campaign, even though every duel is here. While this isn’t a huge loss, it just makes VRAINS stand out among the other campaigns. While it was more understandable when there were only three duels in the game, the fact that every duel from the story is here makes it less excusable.

“Having access to all these cards allows for a ton of freedom when making your deck.”

In terms of actual cards and content, there’s a lot here to enjoy in Link Evolution. After the new content was added, there are now over 10,000 cards in the game from both the OCG and the TCG, which is just…amazing. Playing an official Yu-Gi-Oh! game with what is essentially the most up-to-date version of the card game is really nice. I can make whatever deck I want to make with little to no restrictions. While there’s not much to go in-depth about here given the absolutely insane amount of cards in the game, just know that having access to all these cards allows for a ton of freedom when making your deck.

I was able to play this update on two separate consoles. For the PlayStation 4 version of the game, the game ran pretty much flawlessly. Aside from the fact that there were few people playing the multiplayer, the game ran buttery smooth and looked great. It’s not really that hard to screw up given how simplistic the game is when compared to other titles, but still; credit where credit is due.

After playing the PlayStation 4 version for a while, I switched over (ha!) to the Switch version of the game to see how the new additions hold up. While that version is the same content-wise, there are some major problems with it. The application itself seems to have a major problem with crashing. At several points I would be in the middle of a duel, about to win, and the entire application would crash back to the home screen. I wasn’t doing anything insane or crazy, just in the middle of a duel, playing as I normally would. I’m also not sure if it’s a bug related to a specific deck or card either, because it’s crashed on me while I was using a variety of different decks and characters. While it hasn’t gotten to the point where it’s ruined the game for me in any regard, it is extremely annoying to being on the comeback of a duel, only to have that comeback be ruined by the game crashing.

All in all, however, this new update is amazing. Having all the VRAINS story missions available at my fingertips, as well as the slew of brand new cards, makes for an absolutely wonderful Yu-Gi-Oh! experience. While the game crashing on the Switch version and the lack of cutscenes in the VRAINS campaign is unfortunate, there’s no denying that this is still the best and most complete Yu-Gi-Oh! experience you can find right now.

April 2, 2020 11:30 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/link-evolutions-new-content-makes-the-series-best-game-even-better/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=link-evolutions-new-content-makes-the-series-best-game-even-better

[darkzorua100]

So I’ve known this has been going on for a while now but I haven’t felt the need to address this problem until now because I keep seeing people bring this up and I feel like I should at least add in my two cents to this before the new season starts and we get our new characters for Vrains and before the summary/cast list for episode 47 comes out (which honestly, if Playmaker vs Revolver ends during 46, this will more then likely be a recap episode (finally an appropriate time for one though).

So with the new characters, people have started to worry that our main cast at the moment, such as Aoi, Go, and Ryoken for example, will be written out of the show to focus more on our new characters and I can understand that fully. But the thing is, some of these characters can’t be written out for one simple reason: the card game itself.

Sure, most of the people here watch the anime for the plot and the card game second but the truth is, the anime is only used to promote the cards first and foremost and if Konami so desires, they will make things happen in the show just to promote their next upcoming set, such as when Yuri used Ancient Gears for no god damn reason other than to advertise the new structure deck at the time.

That’s why I just can’t see Aoi/Blue Angel be taken out of the plot. Trickstars, as I have stated many times before, are still competitive both in the OCG and TCG and as long as they continue to be competitive, they are going to be getting more support and they would need Aoi/Blue Angel to duel to show off that new support. Anime wise, they can’t write Aoi/Blue Angel out due to the fact that I think we could be spending some more time in the real world with the introduction of Takeru Homura. He goes to not only Yusaku’s school but Aoi’s as well and with the Knights of Hanoi being defeated and more then likely disbanded, I’m sure their school’s duel club will be back up and running which Yusaku, Aoi, and Naoki are all apart of. I’m sure Takeru will also be joining it as well leading to interactions between all four of them in the real world. Also, after the Tower of Hanoi battle and watching his sister die right before his eyes, I’m sure Akira will become even more protective over Aoi then ever since he actually has legit reasons to be over protective of her now. I can see this leading into more development for Aoi, maybe even her finally standing up for herself to her brother in person. Plus I can also see us getting a Blue Angel vs Spectre rematch in the future since Aoi really does need to take her revenge against him in their rivalry I guess you can call it.

And since their new support from Flames of Destruction, Altergeist have also been doing really well competitively in Japan and I’m expecting to see the same happen when that set comes out for the TCG. So I also can’t see Emma/Ghost Girl being written out of the show either, along with the fact that we still haven’t gotten her backstory yet if you want to argue that the card game isn’t everything to the show. YGO might not have the best history when it comes to its females but those females happen to be their cash cows at their moment and they won’t write them out just for that reason alone (and now that I say that, wow that sounds so sexist -_-)

For those that don’t play YGO or know everything about how competitive people think, everyone is saying that Akira’s Tindangle archetype is the worst deck to come from Vrains at the moment (which it really isn’t but that’s a whole different rant right there) so in a nutshell, that means his cards aren’t being used. That kinda showed in the anime when they didn’t even allow him to duel and just out right killed him off without even giving him a fighting chance. However, if they are going to keep Aoi, Akira has to stay around just for her character being the overprotective brother that he is. I don’t know whether he is going to be dueling anytime soon though. However, regardless of Aoi, I don’t see how they can write Akira out either since if we are going to have SOL Technology being more involved, Akira still works for them and he might start to do some more digging around to find out more about them and what their future role in the show will be, especially if they are going to be starting to hunt down Playmaker.

Then there’s Go and honestly, I have no idea whether he is going to stay around or not. He is supposed to be a main character but he was hardly around during the first season to begin with and since his archetype isn’t being used that often competitively, they won’t keep him around just for the card sells. Out of all the characters, I admit, he should be the one everyone should worry about the most because unlike Akira, he has no big connection to anyone/anything who can keep him relevant, not like he was relevant to begin with...Honestly, the only way I can see him sticking around is if he forms a rivalry with Bowman (which I can see happening).

Spectre is also kinda up in the air at the moment. His cards haven’t been printed and I don’t think they will be printed anytime soon or at all for the matter. He can’t be written out though since he is a Lost Child but I don’t think he will be around anytime soon until they need to bring all the Lost Kids together for something big, he does get a rematch with Blue Angel or he will follow in Ryoken’s footsteps and slowly start to get a redemption arc (I hope). Honestly though, I think he will be put into a similar situation as Jin but I really hope I’m wrong because I do love my Plant Instantly children. 

And finally, the last big one for our season 1 cast, Ryoken. If we are looking at it from a card game standpoint, while his Rokket archetype isn’t the best, his Borreload Dragon is a staple to see nowadays and it is common to also see his Topologic monsters being used. I believe Topologic Bomber Dragon was being used for an FTK in Japan for a while if that’s anything to go by. And if you want to look at it plot wise, they can’t write Ryoken out of the show. For one, he’s Yusaku’s main rival and yes, Reiji was never around and never really dueled but that was due to his VA being so busy. I also see people thinking that Soulburner is going to take Revolver’s place but keep in mind, Yuma had two rivals so why can’t Playmaker if that is the case. And honestly, after the big reveal about Ryoken being Yusaku’s special person, that just spells out that Ryoken is getting a redemption arc. Plus, I see him and Yusaku teaming up in the future (Revolver and Playmaker tag duel when?) and a Soulburner and Revolver matchup happening down the line as well, as well as being the person to get Yusaku back on his feet when he finally does lose (because I’m convinced when Soulburner vs Playmaker happens, Takeru is going to out right destroy Yusaku).

So those are my thoughts at the moment about this whole mess. I honestly think people are making a big deal out of nothing at the moment for most of these characters but we will just have to wait for the new OP and ED to see if anyone isn’t in it. If they aren’t, then we might have a problem.