Dark Maltos

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Dark Maltos's Dueling Dome
Rant Mode
July 4, 2006

Its been a while since I started doing this job, just before Christmas 2005, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve done some pretty memorable things, including a full week of articles (that was hell, I tell you) , creating my own ‘Friday Deck’ section, and I think, on the whole , writing some thought provoking stuff, that I hope appeals to everyone. Over my months at pojo, I’ve received some really good replies, and met a lot of interesting people who I commune with over AOL.

For the most part, my readers like what I do. I’ve yet to receive a truly negative response (well there was one, but I countered all his points and never heard from him again) which I suppose is cool, although I’m sure there are lots out there who don’t like me, and just cant be bothered telling me through mail, but the people who do get in contact with me generally like what I have to say, and I’m REALLY grateful, and pleased about that.

My ‘fans’ for lack of a better word all agree on one thing about me though, I’m pretty deep. I go into detail about the things im passionate about , and this is going to be one of those ones.. And it’s going to be huge, hopefully so cool they make a thread about it on pojo‘s message board, (that’d be so cool !!! Hint, hint)

As it stands, our game is dying. It’s falling from the grace it once had and deeper and deeper into destitution. Ok, UDE’s sales don’t say that , Yugioh’s still the number 1 game in the world to them, but they don’t play do they? The game’s gone stale and the packs that konami produce are the root of it.

It used to be that whenever a new pack came out we all needed to get it in order to reach the next level of dueling , to advance ourselves and our decks with the new must - have cards. Each set came out with a few great, rare cards that we could utilise to increase the power of our decks. Over time we collected these cards and with each new set we got the power we craved. I remember back in the good old days when I’d never even saw a mirror force except for the one guy at the shop who was lucky enough to own one. That was back when there was cards that we needed, back when each set was vital. I think all that changed around Ancient Sanctuary. Yes, there were cards to be obtained after that, Cyber Dragon for instance pops to mind, and tree born frog, but nothing absolutely vital, nothing that was definitely necessary. And that’s when the decline began. Chaos popped up shortly previously and then people didn’t need any new cards as they already had enough power to abuse.

Since then packs have been getting progressively worse and unnecessary. People don’t want to buy them. Little kids do who only have interest in getting their favourite-est E hero’s and roid cards to put in their 100 card ‘decks’ packed with dozens of starter deck cards and Yugioh stickers. Now I’m not saying that all E hero’s are terrible, and I’m not trying to discourage anyone from making one if they wish. I recently constructed a decent deck with them. I realise they’re fun, and I realise that there are people who want to run them, but come on !!! Enough is enough, you must agree. How much support do they need? Virtually every proposed set for the next few months will almost guarantee a good 40 out of 60 set comprised of hero support that they’ll never be able to fit in. I’ve built the deck, I’ve tried, but there’s no way in hell that you’ll ever be able to fit in any power cards in a deck focused on e heroes as the theme, there’s just no room. God knows how the hell im going to fit ‘aqua nova mega death ryu filler super dude dolphin’ in with all his neo doodle, situational friends into that deck, but of course I have to because they’re the next ‘Evolution’ of the E hero genre. Well THANKS there konami !!! I’ve just wasted a few hundred on getting the packs to get the cards you just printed which paid for your wages and your trip to Malaga as well as printing the new cards which you now say make the old one’s obsolete. Thanks a friggin lot.

The E heroes, although they do pull in your major target audience, the lil kiddies, are not attracting the players that should out last the fad that the E heroes bring, and they are the more important players of all. Cater to your players needs, and let the little kids find their own way into the game. The heroes do not appeal to the competitive players, and filling the sets with them to the entirety will not sell the packs. Cater to the game.

Yugioh GX is the worst thing to come out of this game period. I’ve seen the show, its awful. Anyone over the age of 10 couldn’t sit through an hour of it without a morbid red face of shame. The Sacred beasts episode was so , so painful. I hate it with a passion. The original series had passion , it had drama and it had an overwhelming sense of purpose. GX has none of that, its packed with squeaky pre teens , over the top enemies, talking cards with no explanation behind it and overall a bubblegum image that’d make Princess Pikeru puke. Its wrong, it’s put me off the cartoon completely, and it shouldn’t be allowed to keep filling our minds and sets with the garbage it does. I’m normally an easy going kind of guy, but its like they’re not even trying any more. Why should we?

As long as the GX style of play is allowed to continue the original factors that made this game great will definitely be forgotten. Watch any episode of battle city and its interesting. Battle city was great, pure brilliance. Everything else before and after (and oddly in between, that Noah saga was weird!) paled in comparison and couldn’t live up to what Battle city delivered. Drama, suspense and God cards that weren’t so childish. All was good .

My next problem I’m going to tackle is the constant whining about how much Return from the different dimension and Chaos Sorcerer are ‘broken’ . Ohh how I’ve come to hate that word. It used to have context.

‘Broken’ was a term originally formed to describe a card with no restrictions that initially over grew its original purpose. Raigeki and Harpies feather duster were ‘broken’. Originally, when the game was new, these cards were made, and no one knew the extent that they would affect the players using them. No one knew how important monsters and s/t’s were, so these two cards became broken.

The Chaos monsters originally were used as a counter to the uprising of the powerful cards over used in the meat, such as the above two power houses. The two Envoys were ‘broken’ . Mass power, virtually no restraints and even more deadly when combined with decks running already ‘broken’ cards. Chaos sorcerer did not fit this criteria.

Since his initial release so long ago, Chaos sorcerer has never yet been used. Even in the previous format, with both envoys gone, chaos sorcerer was not used. Now, much like DDA in the previous format, he’s all that’s being used. Un costed removal on a minor scale . Easily countered, but I suppose can pose quite a threat. Not ‘broken’ , but quite annoying I’ll give you that.

Return from the different dimension is not broken at all. People complain about it being an instant win card as if the concept as new. RFTDD was designed to BE an instant win card. Its , its purpose. It fills 5 monster slots potentially for one card. That’s what it does, and that’s what it always has done. Its easily countered, even more so than in the previous format, what with Mirror Force coming back, and is no more ‘broken’ now than it ever has been. RFTDD is a combination card that we’ve always had, but no ones ever used until now, and since its become popular everyone rants about it. I don’t run either Chaos sorcerer or RFTDD in my deck, my friend runs the Return, in a light variant. But I’ve never complained.

I think the problem is that for the most part, Yugioh players are just idiots. They follow the crowd, blame everything but themselves for their misfortune and rant and moan about things they don’t fully understand. If they put in half as much effort as they do moaning about cards into actually using cognitive thought to try and counter it then they might get somewhere, but no. They sits their,. Steaming clutching someone else’s deck that someone, somewhere won with once, claiming it as their own, or even worse running an entire CC with a ‘teched ‘ Brain control and thinking themselves tactical geniuses and pioneers of originality.

I remember in the early days, when I was just getting started as a Pojo writer, a guy gives me a mail, saying how much he respects me for my comments on originality, and that he feels CC is taking over, so he gives me a list of his deck.

The whole thing was a complete CC with a teched in Enraged battle ox and a couple of Berserk gorillas, or something like that. I told him ‘That’s just CC with a couple of different cards in’ , so he fixes it and sends me it back. Now he’s dropped something for a second Enraged, or at least something to that effect. And I tell him the same thing again. So then this guy IM’s me.

‘What do you mean its CC?’ he replies. ‘I don’t know what you mean, what else could I change?’ He couldn’t for the life of him figure how to make his deck less CC, he thought he was the advocate of originality, and couldn’t think of ANYTHING at all that he could remove. This was back in the regressive format when everyone packed in 3 DDA’s, 3 Cyber Dragons, 3 Smashing Grounds and 3 Mobius’s by the way. IU really pitied him.

The sad thing is that most duelists are the same. Mindless, lacking anything that separates them from each other. They forget what they once knew, abandoning past strategies in place of the next theory.

On Pojo’s forums, a few key phrases continually pop up. Skill and luck sack. Whenever a player wins he’s used ‘skill’ , whenever a player looses it was through a ‘luck sack’. Abandon these phrases now. For the most part, this game doesn’t posses skill to be played correctly.

Generally, ‘skill’ is a measure of how knowledgeable you are of the intricate card game rulings. Most players go off instinct when deciding plays and since the whole game revolves around the concept of what you have in your hands this further diminishes the concept that you are ‘skilful’ as your are restricted to what moves you can play by the cards you have at any given time. ‘Skill’ is a term used very loosely in this game. The problem is that people, upon reaching a certain level refuse to acknowledge that others are better than themselves, crediting every loss to misfortune. That’s not the case, and then need to stop deluding themselves.

Luck sack is just a horrible phrase. It sounds really unpleasant. Saying ‘I got luck sacked ‘ is lie saying you got robbed of a victory. That isn’t the case . If someone puts something in their deck, I feel its only fair that they get to draw it. Drawing it at the opportune time is lucky granted, but please don’t make it sound like that was the only thing that lead to your downfall. No card can win the game by itself.

I think that’s all I got. So think about it. Don’t let the game die, don’t follow the crowd, the decks they make all suck. All of them, every deck is garbage lately, mine , yours. They are all bad. Don’t feel that you have to conform just to have a competitive edge. You don’t. You can build any deck and get success in this format. Those uber original decks that you see triumphing over and over are not good. They shouldn’t work, but they do because that’s how far we’ve fallen thanks to the 6 months of hell from the regressive format. Those sort or combo’s would never wash in traditional, they just squeeze through because of the lack of options available to us thanks to the ban list. If you’ve been playing for as long as me you know I’m right. They’re bad, they should do as well as they do, and its only a sign of our own short comings that they continue to prosper.

Have a good one guys, and think about it.

Toddyhole@aol.com