Yu Gi Oh

[Lea Plath]

So on another forum I go on I managed to get some Yu Gi Oh games going, between me and some friends. Its fun, casual, I've learnt a lot, made a lot of new decks and it has been fun.

Anyway, I was wondering if I could get some games going here.

We use http://www.duelingnetwork.com/, which allows you to build a deck with any card, provides counters for various things like tokens, life points, dice rolls etc and a chat service during duels. It isn't perfect and doesn't correct you so it is possible to cheat though.

If you don't know the rules, but wanna learn, the wiki ( http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page ) is a good place to go.

So if you fancy a game, PM me or add me on steam, hope to see some of you playing yugioh soon ^^

[Craft (Cheese)]

Fair warning to you: The game quickly degenerates at high-level play into "whoever can spam the most high-level special summons onto the field by turn 2" and then ceases to be interesting. And judging by what I hear from my friends who still play, it's only gotten worse since I stopped playing four years ago due to power creep.

[MLai]

Fair warning to you: The game quickly degenerates at high-level play into "whoever can spam the most high-level special summons onto the field by turn 2" and then ceases to be interesting. And judging by what I hear from my friends who still play, it's only gotten worse since I stopped playing four years ago due to power creep.
LOL this sounds exactly like the cartoon.

[dragonsamurai77]

So on another forum I go on I managed to get some Yu Gi Oh games going, between me and some friends. Its fun, casual, I've learnt a lot, made a lot of new decks and it has been fun.

Anyway, I was wondering if I could get some games going here.

We use http://www.duelingnetwork.com/, which allows you to build a deck with any card, provides counters for various things like tokens, life points, dice rolls etc and a chat service during duels. It isn't perfect and doesn't correct you so it is possible to cheat though.

If you don't know the rules, but wanna learn, the wiki ( http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page ) is a good place to go.

So if you fancy a game, PM me or add me on steam, hope to see some of you playing yugioh soon ^^

You are not alone (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227632).

[Grue Bait]

To be honest, I hate dueling on sites where you can fill your deck with a bunch of OP crap. Dueling IRL is way more fun, which is why a friend and I try to get together as often as possible for that. Plus, you know, you can scream "you just activated my trap card!" I'd check out a local card shop to see if they do tournaments.

[Mando Knight]

To be honest, I hate dueling on sites where you can fill your deck with a bunch of OP crap. Dueling IRL is way more fun, which is why a friend and I try to get together as often as possible for that. Plus, you know, you can scream "you just activated my trap card!" I'd check out a local card shop to see if they do tournaments.
It's dueling IRL that I've seen people try out their decks before regionals... those are filled with OP junk.

And by OP, I mean "I summoned a pair of 3500 ATK beaters on my third turn" decks are considered old hat.

Of course, I'm of the opinion that Blue-Eyes should still be a well-supported deck theme, so whatever.

[dragonsamurai77]

It's dueling IRL that I've seen people try out their decks before regionals... those are filled with OP junk.

And by OP, I mean "I summoned a pair of 3500 ATK beaters on my third turn" decks are considered old hat.

Of course, I'm of the opinion that Blue-Eyes should still be a well-supported deck theme, so whatever.

It is well-supported, it just can't gain card advantage very easily.

[Mando Knight]

It is well-supported, it just can't gain card advantage very easily.

It's fairly well-supported, but it doesn't support itself (like the Nordic Beasts, Inzektors, etc. that have been released in the last 10 boosters...), and I'm sure a lot of players would argue that its main use is as a still-fairly-massive beater that can be used to summon Thunder End Dragon and works well with Darkness Metal Dragon... in other words, a Blue-Eyes themed deck doesn't work quite as well as a Dragon-themed deck that has Blue-Eyes in it.

On the other hand, I don't know if there are many Level 8 Normal monsters that are as well-supported as Blue-Eyes, so that would make Thunder End Dragon a fantastic addition to such a deck. (Especially with Darkness Metal as well... discard a Blue-Eyes from Thunder End to Raigeki the enemy, then Darkness Metal's effect brings it back from the dead... game over.)

[dragonsamurai77]

It's fairly well-supported, but it doesn't support itself (like the Nordic Beasts, Inzektors, etc. that have been released in the last 10 boosters...), and I'm sure a lot of players would argue that its main use is as a still-fairly-massive beater that can be used to summon Thunder End Dragon and works well with Darkness Metal Dragon... in other words, a Blue-Eyes themed deck doesn't work quite as well as a Dragon-themed deck that has Blue-Eyes in it.

On the other hand, I don't know if there are many Level 8 Normal monsters that are as well-supported as Blue-Eyes, so that would make Thunder End Dragon a fantastic addition to such a deck. (Especially with Darkness Metal as well... discard a Blue-Eyes from Thunder End to Raigeki the enemy, then Darkness Metal's effect brings it back from the dead... game over.)

Well, no, because you're comparing a single card to an entire archetype. Apples and oranges (really, apple seed and apple).

[Grue Bait]

It's dueling IRL that I've seen people try out their decks before regionals... those are filled with OP junk.

And by OP, I mean "I summoned a pair of 3500 ATK beaters on my third turn" decks are considered old hat.

Of course, I'm of the opinion that Blue-Eyes should still be a well-supported deck theme, so whatever.

Ah, but they paid for that OP junk. :smalltongue: Fortunately, I've never had the gall to go to one of those things. Tournies like that are scary, and for the hardcore player, not for wimpy, underpowered, casual players like me. Besides, with friends, there're house rules, and basic courtesy things you don't get in the cutthroat world of real players. As for the Blue-Eyes deck, I'm with you there. I just gotta get back on yugiohmint to get myself Blue-Eyes Ultimate, since I just recently got my third needed Blue-Eyes.

[Zevox]

Fair warning to you: The game quickly degenerates at high-level play into "whoever can spam the most high-level special summons onto the field by turn 2" and then ceases to be interesting. And judging by what I hear from my friends who still play, it's only gotten worse since I stopped playing four years ago due to power creep.
Pity. I stopped playing six or seven years ago, and I never much liked that kind of play. The deck I used back when I attended some small local tournaments was designed around direct damage output. I only had one monster in it with an attack power over 1400, and it was there pretty much solely as a stalling tactic and as ammo for my Catapult Turtle.

Yeah, I used to like this game back when I was in High School, but then new card sets started coming out faster than I could keep up, and I just kinda dropped it due to lack of enough money to burn. Now even if I wanted to play online and not need to worry about purchasing the cards I'd have more than a half decade worth of new cards to learn.

Zevox

[Craft (Cheese)]

Pity. I stopped playing six or seven years ago, and I never much liked that kind of play. The deck I used back when I attended some small local tournaments was designed around direct damage output. I only had one monster in it with an attack power over 1400, and it was there pretty much solely as a stalling tactic and as ammo for my Catapult Turtle.

Yeah, I used to like this game back when I was in High School, but then new card sets started coming out faster than I could keep up, and I just kinda dropped it due to lack of enough money to burn. Now even if I wanted to play online and not need to worry about purchasing the cards I'd have more than a half decade worth of new cards to learn.

Zevox

You don't have to worry about the cards so much. Every decktype in the top two tiers for a while has been around spamming special summons, with new decks replacing old ones just by doing the same thing, but better (and a slight dose of banlist fiat to help ensure older decks fall to the newer ones to "encourage" sales). This cycle of power creep ensures that the only cards that are being played are the ones released in the last few sets, possibly with a few old broken staple cards that all decks benefit from having (Monster Reborn and the such). The last widely considered* top-tier deck to NOT rely on summon spamming was Perfect Circle (spin-lock), and that just relied on spamming as many draw sources as possible instead.

Furthermore, only about 5 cards per set (granting a few exceptions like the release of Lightsworn and Legendary Six Samurai, though Lightsworns didn't get off the ground until a few sets later) ever have any impact on the high-level metagame at all, most of these now being obsolete due to the aforementioned power creep. If you wanted to get back into YGO you'd only have to learn like, maybe 50 new cards. A much bigger obstacle would be getting over old habits: Most importantly, the once-intelligent tactic of resource conservation is now suicidally stupid.

* Arguably, the last one was actually the Valley Explosion build, but it rose and fell from power between major tournaments and, thus, never got a chance to really make a name for itself before it was abandoned after D-Fusion got the axe. This was the last deck I ran before I stopped playing.

[Mando Knight]

I just gotta get back on yugiohmint to get myself Blue-Eyes Ultimate, since I just recently got my third needed Blue-Eyes.

I have that, the Master Knight, and four different Blue-Eyes. (Kaiba starter, Kaiba Evolution starter, Duelist Pack: Kaiba, and the Forbidden Legacy promo Secret Rare)

Fortunately, those who have tournament level decks are sometimes willing to trade and donate cards to players without the hottest stuff...

Also, I'm eyeing the Dragons Collide structure deck (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Structure_Deck:_Dragons_Collide)... plenty of good dragon support (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Set_Card_Lists:Structure_Deck:_Dragons_Collide_%28 TCG-EN%29), including Blue-Eyes support (White Stone of Legend, Kaibaman, Burst Stream of Destruction) and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.

[Grue Bait]

Did you just introduce me to a YGO wiki? There goes my saturday...

Sweet cards, though. No card shops around here do tournaments, so the only way for me to get cards like that is on the internet, unfortunately. And is Jinzo decent in battles? I've been thinking of getting him. And that five-headed dragon thing from the original series, and Mirage Knight, and a bunch of others. I'll have to dig up my list and ask about the ones that aren't off the the top of my head. Anyone have recommendations for cards to support warrior and spellcaster decks?

[Winthur]

Fair warning to you: The game quickly degenerates at high-level play into "whoever can spam the most high-level special summons onto the field by turn 2" and then ceases to be interesting.

You play like someone who isn't American. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyUluO-1vwY)

[Zevox]

You don't have to worry about the cards so much. Every decktype in the top two tiers for a while has been around spamming special summons, with new decks replacing old ones just by doing the same thing, but better (and a slight dose of banlist fiat to help ensure older decks fall to the newer ones to "encourage" sales). This cycle of power creep ensures that the only cards that are being played are the ones released in the last few sets, possibly with a few old broken staple cards that all decks benefit from having (Monster Reborn and the such). The last widely considered* top-tier deck to NOT rely on summon spamming was Perfect Circle (spin-lock), and that just relied on spamming as many draw sources as possible instead.

Furthermore, only about 5 cards per set (granting a few exceptions like the release of Lightsworn and Legendary Six Samurai, though Lightsworns didn't get off the ground until a few sets later) ever have any impact on the high-level metagame at all, most of these now being obsolete due to the aforementioned power creep. If you wanted to get back into YGO you'd only have to learn like, maybe 50 new cards. A much bigger obstacle would be getting over old habits: Most importantly, the once-intelligent tactic of resource conservation is now suicidally stupid.

* Arguably, the last one was actually the Valley Explosion build, but it rose and fell from power between major tournaments and, thus, never got a chance to really make a name for itself before it was abandoned after D-Fusion got the axe. This was the last deck I ran before I stopped playing.
So, in other words, exactly the kind of play style I didn't like before is now dominant to the point of being the only one worth playing, making any cards not used towards its goals effectively obsolete. Yeah, I think that just means that it was good that I stopped playing when I did.

Zevox

[Craft (Cheese)]

And is Jinzo decent in battles? I've been thinking of getting him.

If you want trap disruption (of dubious merit itself), just run Royal Decree. Jinzo is slower and more vulnerable, with monster disruption being far more important (and thus more common) than counters for continuous spells/traps. If you want a 2400 ATK body that can pull double-duty, there's much faster (and better) options available.

As for Warriors/Spellcasters, Secret Village of the Spellcasters (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Secret_Village_of_the_Spellcasters) and Legendary Six Samurai are decent enough tier 2-3 builds.


So, in other words, exactly the kind of play style I didn't like before is now dominant to the point of being the only one worth playing, making any cards not used towards its goals effectively obsolete. Yeah, I think that just means that it was good that I stopped playing when I did.

Zevox

Not exactly: There are plenty of popular cards that counter summon-spam, like Effect Veiler, Solemn Warning, and Maxx C: it's just that even with all these counters any deck that doesn't summon-spam will lay down and die if it ever faces one that does. So the counters are run within the very same decks the cards are meant to discourage.

[Hajutze]

This is probably one of the worst formats to start playing again considering all the bull**** they released lately (Inzectors, Wind-up discarding strategy and etc).

For Gods sake they unbanned BLS and he doesn't seem so scary compared to everything else. :smallannoyed:

[Lord Seth]

So...as someone whose knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty much the earlier seasons of the show, I am curious...how does Yu-Gi-Oh "stack up" to Magic: the Gathering? From what I'm reading, there seems less variance in the professional deck types and the game seems like it goes faster.

[Linkcat]

That is correct.

[Craft (Cheese)]

So...as someone whose knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty much the earlier seasons of the show, I am curious...how does Yu-Gi-Oh "stack up" to Magic: the Gathering? From what I'm reading, there seems less variance in the professional deck types and the game seems like it goes faster.

YGO has a few core problems.

First, there's no set rotation and thus no "reset" for the power creep: An important factor in keeping Standard sane. The game works like MtG's Legacy format, which, if you've ever tried to play Legacy, you should know how that goes. The solution's not as simple as just "ban all sets except the previous X" because the sets are not designed at all to be workable when isolated from the rest of the card pool. Draft in YGO doesn't really work either for this reason.

Second, the game's rules don't support Yomi very well. The only cards that can be used on an opponent's turn to counter their moves directly are trap cards and multi-trigger effect monsters (which were once quite rare), both of which can be destroyed before you can use them and require that you put down on the field before they're used. As such you don't really have any options except to wait for your opponent's turn to end and pray they don't kill you in the meantime. This has been getting better with a large increase in multi-trigger monster effects that can be activated from the hand, like D.D. Crow and Effect Veiler, but there's still not all that much strategy in their usage.

Third, there's no resource system or failsafes inherent to the game rules: The only limitations on what cards can do is whatever the card text says. This is a big reason why "Draw Draw Draw Summon Summon Summon Attack Attack Attack" is nearly unstoppable: Trying to do this in Magic requires mana acceleration which, while not impossible to pull off, isn't literally free like it is in YGO.



All that said, I had fun with YGO while I was learning it and just can't get into Magic. Probably because I had (and still have) friends who play the former while I don't have any friends who play the latter.

[Lord Seth]

First, there's no set rotation and thus no "reset" for the power creep: An important factor in keeping Standard sane. The game works like MtG's Legacy format, which, if you've ever tried to play Legacy, you should know how that goes.I do play Legacy, and...I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you trying to say that, like Legacy, there are particular cards that are fairly scarce but nothing else measures up to (the original dual lands most notably) and therefore are required to play competitively in the format, thus making the cost a barrier to entering it?
Second, the game's rules don't support Yomi very well.Yomi? What's that?

[MLai]

Yomi? What's that?
I see you do not play Virtua Fighter... :smallwink:

[tyckspoon]

Yomi? What's that?

The concept of reading your opponent, or accurately predicting what your opponent will do. The interactions of predictions and counterpredictions- layers of yomi- is most commonly what gives a game depth and allows for the development of skill and strategy in the game. YuGiOh fails at yomi because there is basically one strategy that really works, and even if you successfully predict that your opponent is going for it (and he likely is, because see 'one good strategy') there isn't much of anything you can do about it except try to do it faster.

[Craft (Cheese)]

The concept of reading your opponent, or accurately predicting what your opponent will do. The interactions of predictions and counterpredictions- layers of yomi- is most commonly what gives a game depth and allows for the development of skill and strategy in the game. YuGiOh fails at yomi because there is basically one strategy that really works, and even if you successfully predict that your opponent is going for it (and he likely is, because see 'one good strategy') there isn't much of anything you can do about it except try to do it faster.

This is completely true, but macro-level. I was talking about Micro-level situations, like this:

"Okay, opponent has one face-down and no front row, if I attack now I'll have game. But what if that one face-down is Mirror Force? It'd be stupid to attack if it IS Mirror Force, and it'd be stupid not to attack if it isn't. I don't have any ways to destroy/ignore it, so I'd better try to figure out what it is."

Micro-level Yomi is possible in YGO but actively discouraged by the game's mechanics because almost all cards (barring recent exceptions like Effect Veiler) have to be placed on the field before they can be activated, making them vulnerable. There are simply far too many ways to easily ignore a back row before attacking, making any trap sets that turn simply irrelevant unless you're lucky enough for your opponent to simply not have one of these easy outs. A simple Cold Wave, Giant Trunade, MST, Heavy Storm, or Dust Tornado (at some point all extremely common cards nearly every deck ran as many copies as possible) would have been enough to nullify the Mirror Force scenario entirely.

[MLai]

And this is why I'm loyal only to Dungeon Dice Monsters.

(No I don't have it or play it. But I have downloaded all the rules and monster stats. What a great game system.)

[Sith_Happens]

For Gods sake they unbanned BLS and he doesn't seem so scary compared to everything else. :smallannoyed:

Holy ****. I stopped playing six years ago (mainly due to pretty much all my friends quitting) and never played a real tournament before that, all I know is that I've seen a few of the newer-ish cards and thought "Dang, if my old Black Luster Soldier saw this he'd go cry in the corner." Turns out I was right.:smalleek:


So...as someone whose knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty much the earlier seasons of the show, I am curious...how does Yu-Gi-Oh "stack up" to Magic: the Gathering?

After playing both, I can safely say that it doesn't. And that was six years ago before Yu-Gi-Oh apparently broke in half.

[MLai]

Compared to Magic (I have the Planeswalker 2012 PC game purchased from Steam), I always did like YGO's trap-card system. You can see "Oho he set down a trap card!" *yomi thought processes*
Contrast with MTG where all abilities cards are held in one's hand. You never get any hint of what an opponent might be up to, unless you know his deck. Possible in Poker where cards don't change. Not possible in MTG.

[Sith_Happens]

Contrast with MTG where all abilities cards are held in one's hand. You never get any hint of what an opponent might be up to, unless you know his deck. Possible in Poker where cards don't change. Not possible in MTG.

Well, if you have a core group of friends you play against, and/or you play competitively where a lot of decks are extremely similar to each other, then it doesn't take long to figure out what kind of tricks to expect. You just don't know when to expect them.

[Hajutze]

The game can still be fun if you play in the lower tiers of competition (below 2000 ELO in duelingnetwork for example). The decks there tend to be more balances and variable.

I usually play against a friend or two once a week or so + a couple of random matches to test the new cards.

EDIT: It seems that they have restarted the rankings - count that as 1000 ELO - for fun decks :smallannoyed:

[Grue Bait]

If your going to get into YGO dueling, I'd suggest going back to the earlier rules. The new ones are freakin' complicated. AS for the YGO-MTG thing, I've found MTG to be much more strategy based, but also harder to get the hang of it. If you were to watch a match of each one, you could probably pick up a YGO deck right away and duel, but with MTG, it'll take a few matches.

[Lea Plath]

This went mental when I wasn't looking o.o

Anyway, way I see it. Yugioh, in tournies, is now ALL! about toolbox decks. Bit of everything. The new XYZ cards and synchros are pretty easy to use, and add more tool box.

For people who don't know, XYZ cards, require you to overlay cards, with the XYZ monster on top, and they don't have levels, they have rank, so they ignore cards that work based on level. They can only be summoned by monsters on the field or the rare trap card, so you can't summon 1 first turn, really. You can, however, summon a monster, next turn summon and monster and same turn, xyz summon a monster.

Synchros work like fusion cards, but they need 1 tuner monster and 1 more monster, and the number of stars on both cards needs to add up to the amount of stars on the synchro monster.

And my gladiator beasts deck is a real power house. My best defence monster is 4 stars, and has 2100 defence, my best 4 star attack has 1800. BUT! If they attack or are attacked and not destroyed, at the end of battle phase, you must send them to deck and special summon a new one. You also have special fusion summons that work by sending those cards back to the deck by attacking, and when they have attacked, they can be used to summon Gladiator Beast monster equal to the items needed to fuse them.

It has great deck drawing, good defence to spell and traps, lots of support cards and when you get the hang of it, you control the field.

What is that, Wind up? You want to pull a triple carrier on me? Banish that, doesn't work!

The decks biggest weakness, I would say, it the reliance on equip cards for surviving and if you can't special summon, you are effectively dead.

[Hajutze]

They can only be summoned by monsters on the field or the rare trap card, so you can't summon 1 first turn, really.

> Rescue Rabbit
> Future Fusion + Blackwing Zephyros + any level 4 in hand
> Comboes like foolish burial + gishki beast
> Combies like Cydra + a lvl 3/4 that can chage to lvl 5 or normal summonable lvl 5
> Six samurais
> Wind-ups
> Inzektors
> A huge motherf***ing list

In short .. if only you were right, but sadly - ... they are quite swarmable regardless of the turn (be it the 1st as well).

[Neoseanster]

I've taken to playing with some friends over IRC of late, but we mostly shy away from Synchro and XYZ monsters, and just use older themed decks.

<3 my good ol' zombies.

[Zevox]

Not exactly: There are plenty of popular cards that counter summon-spam, like Effect Veiler, Solemn Warning, and Maxx C: it's just that even with all these counters any deck that doesn't summon-spam will lay down and die if it ever faces one that does. So the counters are run within the very same decks the cards are meant to discourage.
I'm not seeing how that's different from what I said honestly. You're still saying that summon-spam decks are dominant to the point of being the only kind worth playing.

Zevox

[Lea Plath]

> Rescue Rabbit
> Future Fusion + Blackwing Zephyros + any level 4 in hand
> Comboes like foolish burial + gishki beast
> Combies like Cydra + a lvl 3/4 that can chage to lvl 5 or normal summonable lvl 5
> Six samurais
> Wind-ups
> Inzektors
> A huge motherf***ing list

In short .. if only you were right, but sadly - ... they are quite swarmable regardless of the turn (be it the 1st as well).

And then I remembered. I have a heiro deck. First turn, with a bad hand, I have thunder end dragon and ennaed. Yeah >.>

Blame it on my optimism.

Add the hieroglyph dragons to that list. With the right hand, it is easy.

Basically, you just need 3 heiro dragons who are special summoned by tributing another one, and any more are just gravy.

Summon the 4 star one, tribute it using effect, get a seal from deck. Tribute the next dragon. Get another seal. You now have 2 0 attack, 0 defence monsters. XYZ summon ennaed. Detach one seal, tribute as many dragons/monster as you can from hand/grave to clear field. If you tributed any heiros (from hand as well) you can activate their effect, get any dragon monster, or a seal from deck/hand/grave and special summon it. Get thunder end dragon.

6000 attack and a cleared field.

If you feel extra jammy, you can also summon photon eyes using 2 2000+ monsters tributing. So you can get neo photon eyes (4500 attack) out first turn, who also screws over other XYZ decks.


Yeah. Yugioh is pretty borked, but it could be worse. And anyone know a way to play magic online for free? :P

[Linkcat]

If you don't want to play against summon spam decks, you can host a game and put 'fun decks only', 'no meta', or 'casual' or something like that , and you usually find interesting decks.

[Mistral]

Yeah. Yugioh is pretty borked, but it could be worse. And anyone know a way to play magic online for free? :P

Lackey CCG (http://www.lackeyccg.com/downloads.html) is supposed to be compatible with any CCG, or so I hear. I've never actually used it myself.

As for one-turn xyz monsters, you can't really go without including Tour Guide From the Underworld - one summon, instant rank-3. Always entertaining, especially before they patched the rules to get rid of the Sangan exploit (Tour Guide summons Sangan, overlays for Leviathan Dragon, detaches Sangan for an extra 500 ATK, Sangan activates and searches any monster with 1500 ATK or less, leaving you with a 2500 ATK beater and a free search). It's also an excellent splash for Envoy compatibility, along with its counterpart Effect Veiler.

Myself, I love some of the more esoteric OTKs, though. Zephyros mill (dump your entire deck in a single turn, infini-synchro, and push for game), and Phoenix/Electrum OTK (instant win using E-Hero fusions and Burning Bombardment Bird Blaze Fenix). I'm also a big fan of anti-meta, like modern Gladiator Beasts, Rockstun, Perfect Herald or Counter Fairies, and other control decks. I used to play Magic a lot, but this is just so much easier since it has the portable games; I don't have anyone local to play card games against, and I don't really sit in front of a computer and play except by PbP.

[Seerow]

I'm in the group who stopped playing Yugioh about 6 years ago. I enjoyed playing lower tier decks even back then, and the stuff that is around now is just scary.

Personally my favorite deck was always a defense oriented deck. Fairy Box + the cards that double damage taken from attacking your defense monster = lots of fun. Unfortunately the deck was really trap heavy, so gets easily shut down by 'staple' cards.

[Seerow]

I'm in the group who stopped playing Yugioh about 6 years ago. I enjoyed playing lower tier decks even back then, and the stuff that is around now is just scary.

Personally my favorite deck was always a defense oriented deck. Fairy Box + the cards that double damage taken from attacking your defense monster = lots of fun. Unfortunately the deck was really trap heavy, so gets easily shut down by 'staple' cards.

[AtlanteanTroll]

I just recently started dueling (on DuelingNetwork) after having quit right around when GX was wrapping up. I've found no trouble getting into the game. Admittedly though, I do like to mess around with older themes.

And there's always traditional rules.

[Grue Bait]

I think my favorite deck is my spellcaster deck. It's all about throwing what my opponent has back at himself, spell counters, and nulling everything he does.

[Lea Plath]

As for one-turn xyz monsters, you can't really go without including Tour Guide From the Underworld - one summon, instant rank-3. Always entertaining, especially before they patched the rules to get rid of the Sangan exploit (Tour Guide summons Sangan, overlays for Leviathan Dragon, detaches Sangan for an extra 500 ATK, Sangan activates and searches any monster with 1500 ATK or less, leaving you with a 2500 ATK beater and a free search). It's also an excellent splash for Envoy compatibility, along with its counterpart Effect Veiler.

Nope, not Heiro dragons. Tour Guide adds nothing to this deck, because all the good synchros are 4 (Dragon Queen), 6 (dragon pharoh, which lets you search your deck and summon any dragon monster, but they have 0 attack/defence, perfect for XYZs) and 8 (Photon, Thunder end and Ennaed).

[Hajutze]

^
Good Xyzs

[Cogwheel]

Yeah. Yugioh is pretty borked, but it could be worse. And anyone know a way to play magic online for free? :P

Lackey works, as previously mentioned. Cockatrice (http://cockatrice.de/index.php?a=download) is better in all but a few ways, in my opinion, and also requires no plugin, but it's Magic-exclusive as far as I know.

If you decide to play either, by all means, toss a PM my way so we can play a few matches.

[Mistral]

Nope, not Heiro dragons. Tour Guide adds nothing to this deck, because all the good synchros are 4 (Dragon Queen), 6 (dragon pharoh, which lets you search your deck and summon any dragon monster, but they have 0 attack/defence, perfect for XYZs) and 8 (Photon, Thunder end and Ennaed).

Oh, sorry. I thought we were talking about in general, not Hieroglyph in particular. You're right; Tour Guide would only slow a Hiero deck down.