August 2007

 

How Low Can You Go?
Cheating In Yu-Gi-Oh, Trading Card Game.
By Tony Mera

Yu-Gi-Oh: skill or no skill? If you go to Metagame.com, you will realize that we see the same people over and over again making Day 2. Why is that? They go to a lot of SJC's, which give them a great number of attempts to qualify for Day 2. A lot of people think this game is more skill based than it really is. People don't understand that many things contribute to making a day 2 at a SJC. You have to have a lot of luck, play very well and run into favorable match ups. This leads me to believe that even in the off chance that you play as well as every other player, your "luck" might not always be as great as theirs. Luck has to run out sometimes, which makes me believe that cheating is what allows these alleged "Pros" to qualify for Day 2 multiple times.

Some of you may say, "Well they also seem to scrub out of a lot of events they play too." Yes some scrub because their opponents are smart, shuffled their decks and therefore, were not cheated. Also, the fact remains that they might face experienced players like themselves. Both cannot cheat each other. When two "good" players face each other, it becomes a test of who can draw the better hand and who has a better deck for the match up. This knocks out multiple Shonen Jump Day 2 qualifier for the other one.

Cheating is the only skill this game has. Some of you may say that reading and analyzing the field will win you the game. Yes, but this is very limited, so limited it almost does not matter. You can predict and read all you want, but if your hand does not provide counters to their’s, what can you do? Skill is limited. Luck is a huge factor in this game. The few factors of skill this game has is taken away by easy net-decking. You can run some math, play with the odds, but it will never stop when an opponent who is playing out a D-hero beat down OTK hand. It does not seem to matter or take that much science to read a Machine Duplication when your opponent summons a Trooper. This game has so much luck going around, that people who have more than three Shonen Jump Day 2's have to cheat.

I don't want to say any names here. Has anyone realized that now we see people who make Day 2 at back to back events? This is almost impossible without cheating. Luck is so huge, but no one can be so lucky, as to make back to back Day 2's. We all know that many of the "Pros" do not always Day 2. Many of these people cheat, but can not always pull off the win. I know that I'm letting down a couple people's dream here, but people cheat. We have seen many people do anything for the glory of the win.

We saw the great 3 time Shonen Jump Winner go down in a blaze of disgrace after nationals. He is also currently banned, and always seemed to be an all time favorite, just like the current all time favorites we have still going around, who are placing well like he did. You all must think that I am just a hater. No, I just want to expose the truth to everyone, to help people know the facts "Pros" try to hide between each other. Many players know they cheat, even though they just try to hide this fact between themselves. The probability of always out-drawing your opponent is very slim. When you do it in a nine or ten round Jump back to back or multiple times, it becomes suspicious. We all know that these "Pros" are good and do not need to cheat. They do so because they want to win the championship, prizes, and money. This allows them to keep traveling to other events.

If you’re traveling to Shonen Jumps, YOU DO NOT want to LOSE. Therefore, people will cheat. No one wants to waste money on a trip when they know that they don't have that great a chance of doing well at due to the factor of luck. Therefore, people will resolve themselves to cheating. This game has no respect or "honor" like it had years ago, if it ever did. We now see an increase in number of thefts. It might be because of the expensive cards and greed. Yu-Gi-Oh players are greedy. If they will steal, then it's completely obvious they will resolve to cheating. There is no shame in stealing between your friends, right? This is how it usually sounds, "Wow, your so lucky, so what goods did you get?" It's a complete shame that some people can't even take their binders to events anymore.

This game is built to have fun. It's not meant to hurt anyone. This game may be competitive, but people need to relax. The greed of players is making stealing and cheating go to an all time high. People will cheat at every opportunity they can just to gain an extra step to "glory." Mankind never liked losing. People will do anything to win in some games, sports, jobs and life. People are even willing to kill, which is why there are so many murders throughout the world. I'm so glad there has not been a murder over Yu-Gi-Oh yet. I'm almost really surprised. I was sure someone was going to pull the trigger over a bubble match.

People need to realize that this is a luck sack based game, having little or nothing to do with skill. The only skill this game involves is cheating and not being cheated. This game is so luck sack based, it would seem impossible for people to day 2 multiple times, no matter how good he is. Every good player I know has knowledge of the same amount of information as any other "Pro." The fact that people who do well, but do not go to many jumps have realized how expensive traveling to events is. They have decided that luck plays an important role in every duel and deciding they will not cheat, end up attending very few high level premier events. Cheating gives "Pros" confidence to do well. If they knew they had no chance, they would not always choose to travel much. People who take the next step to always travel to such and such event, know they cheat. Like I said before, this game is hand against hand, top deck against top deck, match up against match up, and common sense of knowing how to play the card game. People make it that this game has so much skill that people need to call each other terrible. I even caught myself falling into this trap a couple of times.