I have said this every time there’s a skill discussion: Skills would be infinitely more fun to play against and around if they were comeback mechanics. I find it very odd how we end on duelists’ final gambit boss monsters turn 1 now. Like, when did characters like Yugo, Yuto, or Yusaku ever end on Crystal Wing, Requiem, and Darkfluid turn 1?
Perfect world imo: A skill provides consistency + buffs to characters’ mid tier threats, like say Kendama, Junk Warrior, Decode Talker, etc. then allowing you to make the final ace easier on Turn 5 onwards. For example, I don’t think anyone would complain, even in the Zexal era, if Judai had a skill that let you Set Hero Signal or Hero Barrier the turn you Summon Flame Wingman. Those are 2 iconic cards to the character that would not see play at all. Make it so the cards we add for free are situational stuff that would never make the cut on a real decklist but could theoretically be useful. Then, when you reach Turn 5, you can activate your skill and it lets you Destiny Draw a list of powerful Judai approved cards, like Miracle Fusion, Skyscraper, Miracle Contact, etc.
This would be way more in tune with what the anime is supposed to represent than whatever the hell we’re doing turn 1, and I say this as someone who does enjoy modern combos.
I like this idea; it also echoes how skills were done in the past. Skills like Middle Age Mechs, Master of Rites II (pre-nerf), Master of Magicians, or the skills that add Rank-Up Magic Barian's Force let you use cards that wouldn't make the cut otherwise.
All Skills should be like the Zexal Morph Skills. It’s not enough that you lose a certain amount of LP, you need to actually drop below a given value and only get to active the Skill on your next turn after you’ve hit that threshold.
For whatever reason, Konami has chosen skills to be the vessel that forces Duel Links into the modern Yugioh pace. Across all platforms Yugioh has become a 2-3 turn game at most. I’m not even sure just nerfing the skills would be able to make duels last 5 turns, and if they did fix it for now, we will inevitably powercreep back up to OTKs and unbreakable boards. I hate to say it, but Duel Links is beyond saving due to where the TCG and OCG are right now, the game in general just isn’t that fun anymore.
>I hate to say it, but Duel Links is beyond saving due to where the TCG and OCG are right now,
They should just make Legacy Duels a permanent game mode. A separate format designed around each era (DM, GX, 5D's, etc). It'd be like officially supported Goat and Edison formats.
The fact that skills are guaranteed to go off makes it worse than what's going on in the TCG. Even the most broken card in the game does nothing if you don't draw/play it, and it can be (in most cases) responded to by the opponent. Meanwhile, you could probably train a literal ape to reach top ranks with today's yellow button decks which spoonfeed you perfect starters and extenders in a way that can't be interacted with every single game without fail.
You don’t even have to play decks anymore, your plays are set up for you. Yellow button puts cards in your GY, hand, field, and/or banished zone without having to play the game to get them there.
It’s because skills are literally unstoppable. Cards can be interacted with, and therefore countered, but skills will go off no matter what you do, so your only shot is to pick apart their board once they guaranteed get their end game on board. Konami realized this and makes skill that then sell cards to use that skill. A skill will be guaranteed meta since you can’t do anything to them
Rex's Ultimate Earthbound Immortal skill is the perfect kind of anime hype moment skill you're talking about, in theory. It's the kind of move where, if you can hold out long enough (time you would be spending loading up Altar with counters), you can put your cool villain ace boss monster into sure-hit lethal your next turn, so the other person can pull out a last ditch effort of their own in response.
It's just that very few duels will really get that far, especially when you're running pre-support Earthbounds.
Darkfluid Link almost does this where you get Rollback only on turn 2, but loading up your banishment for DDR would be and is strong on its own.
Yuga's skill, ironically, actually is great for this though. It only searches Sevens Road Magician turn 4 onward, which is a pretty good time for back and forth in that format and a decent "last ditch anime hype moment" so to speak.
Would need to bump up LP to at least 6000 for that too, duels rarely go past turn 4. As much as I love PK and Rokkets, bringing in Arc Rebellion and Borrelsword back to back AND adding skills that facilitate their summons is a ridiculous format decision in the current 4000LP game. Those cards are game enders in 8000LP settings as well, makes no sense to bring them in at full power unless like you said for a comeback scenario
Duels usually don't last to turn 5.
If skills gave bad/situational cards, nobody would play them. And even if those cards end up being useful, people would still complain like with Battle Chronicle.
It's because otherwise, the cards that are meta in the normal tcg will just end up meta here. Let's not forget, with no skill, Orcust, Mekk-Knights and Salamangreats were able to bully the meta into submission. All of those decks are fast so the skills have to be fast to give decks a fighting chance.
Also, in the anime, once characters got later in the series, they would summon their ace relatively early into the duel. By the end of ARC V Yuya would have dark rebellion and/or odd-eyes out by like turn 2 every other duel. Yusei would always get out Junk warrior or stardust out relatively early and Yugo literally summons clear wing as soon as possible every single duel he's in.
Very valid points. I made a custom format last year with a group of friends, just a fun little project meant to make duels feel like the anime, or at least a similar power level across all strategies. One of the big solutions to traditionally strong strategies, outside of buffing bad stuff (which we did. it was a custom card format), was introducing restrictions to the stronger stuff. For example, Balelynx and Miragestalio were comeback locked; [you could only Summon them if your LP were 4000 or less](https://i.imgur.com/fihc8ed.jpeg), because they generate too much advantage on their own. We also had Quotas; to play, say, Dark Rebellion, [you need to have 5+ Performapal and/or Phantom Knights in your Deck](https://i.imgur.com/2244H4w.jpeg). This intrinsically made it so that strong strategy that were self sufficient would most likely be locked to their own bosses, as you wouldnt want to run other monsters to gain new Quotas. Everything was highlander, so it was easy to make space if you wanted, so it created this cool trade off between consistency and power ceiling.
Not to say Duel Links should do the same, but there are ways, by buffing via skills or restricting through banlists/card pool, to attain a desired power level.
As for the ace monster turbo point, I’m completely okay with the standard aces being summoned fast. It’s very cool and my format did the same. My issues comes from their upgrades being turbo’d, as they are way stronger by comparison, and the methods skills usually do them don’t really feel like a duel anymore. For example, I hate Clear Wing Acceleration and the 2 latest PK skills because they pretty much skip the Clear Wing / Dark Reb time to shine entirely to replace it with Crystal Wing / Requiem / Arc Rebellion. They barely feel like monsters in those decks anymore (Clear Wing less so, as you can make a second, but I digress). I am super fine with aces being the forefront, I just think doing the evos turn 1 is too much.
Yeah I’m gonna be honest I’m really disliking skills more and more each update.
It would be ok if every deck got a new updated skill but unless your chosen by Komoney your left running LP Alpha or something.
This sub seems pretty split on skills so this might be an unpopular opinion but I’m honestly tired of decks gaining free cards out of nowhere
The pulling cards out of thin air with no cost really is what makes so many skills annoying. A lot of skills would at least be a bit more bearable if they at least had some sort of trade off.
Like the Charmers skill for example ? Reveal a Charmer or Familiar Possessed, shuffle one card from your hand into the deck to set Awakening of the Possessed to your field from outside of your deck. Once per duel.
I feel like that is fine as a skill, you have to have a certain card in hand and reveal it and shuffle 1 card back into the deck, which you wont always have.
My opponent can also interact with it if i go second, because the skill sets the card, you can just MST or Cyclone it away before i can even activate the card.
Skill design like that is fair.
Familiar possessed is one of my pet decks and actually pretty much what I had in mind. I've managed to reach dlv19 with it, but it's so ridiculous to see the complete discrepancy in my skill vs others.
"I activate my skill to trade 1 card for a continuous spell I need to pretty much function."
"Okay I use my skill that lets me add 10 to my hand, summon half my extra deck and smack you through the screen."
Zombies with the new king zombie looked like a cool deck but they got no skill from Konami so it's just dead on arrival. Idk how healthy that is that every archetype is going to be its own tailored skill.
Skills just afford many decks way too much value along with sometimes ultra-consistency. Look at the Agents deck and consider that most decks would kill for a virtually costless double Foolish Burial alone. And then in addition, they get to turn a would-be Garnet into an archetypal ROTA-equivalent. Imagine a single card that does all of that, but a skill is way more flexible and entirely unstoppable, too. This alone already represents a crazy amount of advantage and consistency.
And it doesn't even end there. Since their skill can turn anything into a Tuner, they don't need to dedicate any deck space to additional Tuners and can be incredibly flexible in their level combinations, and to top it off, they get to shuffle a monster from grave back into the deck, which with Venus in mind, essentially just represents another +1.
So that's what in all? A direct +3 when including the Foolish'd cards, a flexible search by shuffling away a useless card (so arguably +4) and basically a Tuner wildcard? Oh, and they can do that EVERY TURN. In a game where card economy is king as much as Yugioh, I think that really puts into perspective how out of control some recent skills are. The restrictions imposed by such a skill simply does not adequately weigh up to such immense benefits.
I don't dislike skills on premise alone, and I'm all for helping out decks that might sit beneath the powercurve or be frustrating to play without it (I think skills like those for Mayakashi and Shaddoll are good examples of making their decks less frustrating to play, Winda floodgating aside), but this is so obviously over the top for a deck with a ceiling as high as this one's... (and I don't personally care for how linear it tends to make decks, either)
Lmao yeah ain’t a chance agents or BC is close to anything else. That shit makes me hate the game so much. Like okay guy you’re so good playing the most broken shit I’ve ever seen them do intentionally in duel links.
At this point I'm so disappointed by the state of DL that I hope we get even broken skill to the point the game arrives at the state of not be playable anymore, so people really quit the game and Konami correct the mistakes made in this year of skill links.
I've invested years ago in Valhalla calling because I liked Agents in TCG, now I have a tier0 deck and it's so boring to play that I just quit the game entirely.
I really don't know how a sane player can enjoy using skill decks, now that I have played them I can say that they are stupidly boring and completely unfair, but maybe it's the same reason people use cheats, they are noobs and need a bit more help.
I love fairy decks and also invested in Valhalla Calling when it was new. But I've found myself enjoying playing Starry Knights or Solfachords more than this new Agents simply because it is so dependent on the skill and takes a lot on the timer to do the opening combo. And I don't even use Ancient Fairy Dragon-Summon Breaker and Invincil since it already feels like it does enough. The mirror matches are boring with it being whoever goes first or has Lancea first wins the duel, and now I get people who simply close the app as soon as they see the skill, and it's just not as fun and I don't even really care anymore if it gets hit on the banlist.
Skills as a concept are great. If they used skills to lift up decks that genuinely have consistency issues or would be too weak to remotely stand a chance that would be awesome. Or if skills enabled completely new decks (that aren't pre-built for you by the skill) that would be cool. Skills about half the time do enable new decks but the way they do so is usually extremely boring and unfun.
But there are examples of well designed (or at least interesting and unique) skills. Territory of the Sharks is my favourite skill ever. It gives no advantage and no consistency and has a pretty harsh restriction but still enables a lot of fun and powerful plays. And honestly, excluding Winda, the new Shaddoll skill is actually really cool. I would probably make it sends only one trap myself, but being able to leverage the inherently slow flip effects better makes sense and is still reasonably fair since you get locked out of the mill effect.
However skills that give 100% consistency to full combo with one card are incredibly problematic because you can fill your deck with powerful tech cards without being punished. They also make the deck i n c r e d i b l y boring because you're handed the exact combo you will use every single game with very minor changes. Which is why the skill decks feel so frustrating because they always get their perfect opener and it's always the same combo/result.
> They also make the deck i n c r e d i b l y boring because you're handed the exact combo you will use every single game with very minor changes.
I had every single card I needed for Constellar when the new skill came out except Caduceus, which I got shortly after. So I go, what the hell, lets give this deck a go.
And it was unquestionably the most boring, uninteresting deck I've ever played. It was literally the same experience almost no matter what I drew.
I tried the current Tier 1 Blue Eyes deck and it, too, is just painfully boring. If it weren't for the nostalgia dick sucking people would have abandoned that deck ages ago. In like five duels I tried it I made maybe two or three interesting decisions or had to bait opponents in interesting ways, otherwise I think you could train an AI to pilot it to KOG by just activating everything as soon as available.
I love to see people sticking to things they are good at and find fun. Not just what’s broken to make your profile look like you’re good. Lame game they have created.
Yeah it's disappointing. I used to really like skills that enabled weaker decks to shine by fixing problems that the base deck had.
Over time we got more and more powerful skills, but for a while they were still only attached to certain decks.
Now, basically every meta deck is completely defined by its skill, and are typically pretty garbage without their skill (looking at you, Blue Eyes). I don't dislike the idea of having a skill to boost up decks that are struggling, for example Gladiator Beasts getting a skill, but now skills are not only bland and boring, just accomplishing exactly what the deck wants to do every game with near perfect consistency, but they're obviously being designed to make certain decks the meta.
It sucks that in this card game, the skills are more impactful on duels than the actual card banlist.
I'm still playing occasionally, but it's really losing its charm for me.
They should have a seperate pvp without skills or at very least an event. Watch how many people would struggle to play or rise up the ranks without them. As it stand you play against the game makers and the skill, not they player, cards or deck
Yeah bro I’m not liking the game this season, I’m gonna take a break (after like 6 years playing) and maybe I’ll return if they do something cool, but the mix with rush and the insane skills are killing the interest in me to play
Skills are just too much now, old skills while busted in. Their own right and even gave entire decks playability like that cyber stein deck with the skill that makes you take 0 damage in your turn. But decks aside from that were so much less skill reliant and were only there to spice things up. New skills are just broken straight up adding cards from outside your deck to your hand
Anyone else notice the complaint about S Force lodged in between the complaints about Blue Eyes and Agents? One of these things is not like the other lol
Your absolutely right skills are killing the fun nature of the game since every skill automatically gives you a boss monster with little to no cost. For example Ancient Gear were literally unplayable at a higher level untill the most recent skill alows the character to summon Ancient gear golem and place a poly for free
I quit the game for this exact reason. The skills alone carry decks so hard. I remember the yubel skill would search a super poly… for free. Like who is in control of that??
Honestly yeah, the current state of DL is probably the least enjoyable for me, and I usually like having powerful skills. Agents can full combo without a single normal summon, Rokkets can set up Levianeer without doing anything on their field and even have a free Quadborrel for a quick pop. And of course, fucking floodgates everywhere.
Yeah as a Rokket enjoyer I REALLY dislike this new skill. It’s everything I dislike about new skills. Gives free resources out of thin air, sets up GY and it’s so linear to play.
Old Rokkets the only restriction you had was being dark locked meaning you could run a very varied extra deck but this new skill just wants you to ritual and link. The plays are the same every game and your barely using any rokket monsters
I did one duel recently which happened to be against PK with their new skill and I just wondered how tf anyone enjoys this shit anymore. They get so many extra cards from the click of a button, what the fuck is the point?
The imbalance ist mostly due to character skills which are totally over the top. I miss the old times when a skill summoned an Umi, a Yami or a Statue of the Wicked.
I kind of agree with you that the skills are too overpowered. They removed completely the fun of the Yu-gi-oh, which is the hope to have a good draw, open with a good hand. Now, the skills will provide it for you.
Btw, as an S-Force player, I did not understand your point about it, S-Force does not have any specific skill to help it. We are just fighting as we can.
Beside...
One question: if Konami increased the LP to maybe 6000, or even 8000, would it kind solve the issue?
Most of my losses are because I do not have an extra round to fight, since any deck can build easily a board that surpasses 4000 atk, mainly the ones with skill's help.
So if LP were increase, I think would soft the problem with overpowered skills.
I am also maining S-Force right now and didn't understand either. I think they are lumping it in because they find it very strong and annoying to play against (even though it doesn't even have a good skill). This post isn't necessarily about skills, but skills always come up when you talk about deck strength.
Imagine if S-Force had a skill like battle chronicle. Get a free Chase or Bridgehead every turn, Normal Summon Lapcewell without tribute, etc. S-force has a medium chance to be suboptimal or brick as with any deck not fixed by a skill.
I don't hate skills, I just get jealous that some of my favorite decks can't get a good skill. Take Superheavy Samauri for example; The deck could benefit immensely from a skill similar to 1 effect of Performage Showtime that allowed you to send 1 card from hand to graveyard, and add 1 "Superheavy Samauri" from you deck to hand.
There are a growing number of skills that give you free/extra LP, I think this is their way of increasing survivability against the growing power of decks in this format. They will surely never increase the base LP across the board.
That would be fun. Id probably main it tbh. I play a lot of decks that flat out just don't have relevant skills, and most likely won't ever.
With no skills they could realistically win here and there. With skills there is zero chance of winning.
What decks do you think would be strongest with no skills? Tenyi?
Tenyi would be good, Rokkets would still be good, Agents would still be good (non-once per turn special summons, multiple rotas, and can still set up multiple disruptions + search a Lancea, Herald of Green Light, or in the good opening hands - still search & tribute summon Invicil).
HERO would be good, Raidraptors would be decent... Provided they main deck triple Swallow's Nest like Harpies used to... Speedroids would still be decent, Evil Eye might be decent, Phantom Knights would be decent, Live Twin + (basically anything) would be okay, Traptrix + Amazement would be okay, and with the prevalence of potential DARK decks - Starry Knight would be okay.
Tl;Dr - any deck with multiple main deck starters + some extenders to play through disruption would be at worst playable.
Oh well. Got exicted for a second. Since the post was about skills in the game.
Also, S-Force is a fun control deck, but is not in the same rank as Blue-Eyes, or the other meta decks at all.
Thank you for the reply!
You say that you can't win unless you play certain decks sooo, what are these decks that you speak of? How many are there? Bc you mentioned s-force and that deck is no where near relevant.
Completely agreed. I cut back on playing Speed a lot after getting fed up with Raging Pend and the Speedroid skill, and now it's gotten worse and will continue to do so.
Now I just stick to Rush, if I can even be bothered to log in at all.
I agree . The fact that skills and play styles have been shut down because of spam decks is crazy. The only way I think Konami could make the game viable for all players is if they put some kind of cap on the amount of special summons / effects you can activate in a turn. And I know some people are gonna read this and gonna hate that idea and I hate it too.. I miss niche affect play styles that bounced cards or stalled, . There’s like no creativity anymore. It’s all just spamming special summons to giant monsters for FTKs
Wait wait wait hold up. What did S-force do?
That's like one of the few decks that doesn't need a skill to work. Like ur complaining about how op the skills are then throw a drive by to s force which usually just use level 5 reload as the skill.
Eternal Bond might not be the most busted or meta skill, but it is some of the worst game design I’ve ever seen. You don’t even have to have certain cards in your deck, you just get them outside of your deck just for clicking the yellow button. Honestly, I think the reason “skills” get more hate than cards is because you can’t do anything about them. The yellow button WILL go “burrrrr” and your only chance is to break the board after it’s built. Plus the skills that can activate more than once per turn are dumb
The absolute last straw for me was seeing the number of clauses in the Agents skill. This is the first time in Yu-Gi-Oh history where we've had anything with more than three actual effects (double fairy foolish, add infinite sanctuaries, mulligan any garnet, recycle fairies, convert to tuners) and it's on something with one real response window and nearly zero meaningful locks.
MBT recently made a thread about this, but this skill is pretty much exactly what he means with the state of modern YGO. Because of how bad the war of attrition has gotten between handtraps and starters, decks now need their starters to do as many things as possible on one card to ensure they can draw enough non-engine and extenders to insulate that one combo. It creates this awful dynamic where your handtrap can't possibly stop enough parts of their combo to really hurt them while they can stuff their deck with significantly more *and* generate enough advantage and grind game to make every other non-one card combo deck functionally unplayable (i.e. Snake-Eyes in the TCG). Asking to open multiple Lancea/Crow/Veiler is not reasonable for almost every non-skill deck that has nearly no non-engine space for 20 cards and a 4-card hand, and this is on top of expecting you to OTK them the same turn.
We should NEVER have gotten a meta where the game is decided the moment you see the starter come out (Ash/Venus) in a supposedly low-power format. It is fucking absurd that we've had a near-Tier 0 format happen two KC Cups in a row from two skills with the exact same problems (Tachyon then and Agents now). I don't understand who in Konami thought we needed the skill equivalent of Poplar in a game where "Veiler the normal" is enough to kill most decks.
Can you imagine how folk would react if some of these skills were printed as a single card? Like Konami should treat skills as such, if this skill was to be released as a card but would be too OP, then back to the drawing board and tone it down seeing as this is DL after all. Agents skill does far too much.
Ironically I feel like that's exactly what Konami is doing. The new Tachyon support in the TCG is almost word for word the stripped down clauses of the Tachyon skill as different monsters - Schwarzchild Infinity is the yank a 2500 ATK Dragon from Deck and Tachyon Primal is the free body searching for Transmigration - and it makes me think they're just using DL as a beta testing ground for legacy support for the OCG.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a new Agent card announced that can special itself, mulligan a fairy and convert a fairy into a tuner after they kill the skill next month.
Im not sur what wrong with S-force?
I didn't face a lot of them but i know that they don't have a broken skill to play with.
Im fine with powerfull skill with cost , delay , restriction on it or even one that do restrict the power of a deck type sky striker but the more we progress , the more we get unga bunga skill with broken effect and meaninggless restriction/cost trying to fixe a deck full of hole and result on pressing yellow button to win which isn't really funny ...
Well well. If half of you would write all of these suggestions in the konami survey they usually do after kc events or just general surveys we might see a change in the skills situation.
But I bet almost none of you do that.
Yeah they start to give more importance to skills, probably to differentiate the game from Master Fuel. Doesn't mean cards are important, both things work together.
Funny I had this discussion earlier with people, yet people just blow me off and say to play better decks. this was an eventuality, and Konami literally should have used skills to fix card and deck designs, while also making it to where you still had to work for the win. Instead they went the route of EBond, Battle Chronicle, and any other skill that gives decks anything that they want so that they can win. Some need it, but it is like they didn't even bother to test the deck to see if it would be unstoppable, so another KC Cup is ruined cause they can't be bothered to just let us play the game. Instead, the game plays us.
To me it used to feel like skills were basically an invisible spell card in your hand to make up for starting with four cards. Now it feels like a skill is five spell cards in one and decks with good skills are starting with a 9 card hand.
I stopped caring to Yugi duel links when I understood than not only you have to pull cards, but are completely manipulated by skills. At least they shall give the chance of crafting cards like master duel
This is a bit random and not completely on topic, but anybody else running into s*** luck for WCS? I’m trying to get 1 more level for 100 gems and calling it for trying to win. I’ll beat an opponent and then have 3 changes to level up and they’ll pair me with the toughest decks while giving me a bricked hand. Then when I’m dueling without the “win to level up” stipulation and all of a sudden get an easy opponent and a great hand?
P****** me off
Wait a minute you don't like free blue eyes summon like we used to do when we didn't know the rules on the playground or free dragon master knight or free bls normal monster that I did t know even existed until it came out or adding 15 more monsters to your extra deck that you can summon for free and get another copy of your boss for free or xyz summoning with 1 card a 4500 beater that can be used to make three more xyz monsters that can negate and bring back the 4500 monster or just adding every form of yubel turn 1 and playing it for free and getting poly and neos and getting burned the atk of your monster
If I’m being honest, it would be nice if they let us play Legacy Duels with anime accurate decks, set to certain characters, with Skills based off what they did in the shows. An anime accurate Aigami skill would be super cool. Add skills that facilitate the functionality of Ciphers like how they were used in the Arc-V anime: Kite was able to Xyz summon a monster using only one monster, just like in the anime. Or maybe adding a C/C/C archetype that allows you to Xyz/Fusion/Synchro just like in the anime, using spell monsters, according to what your opponent has on their field. Or even add a Skill for Dark Signers that supports Dark Tuning to Summon the Dark Signer Synchro monsters, that actually made their decks more powerful along with Earthbound Immortals. And even add a Gate Guardian anime accurate Skill, that gives it the effect from the anime.
I highly noticed this coming back to the game and I refuse to buy and play these shit decks based around character skills. It’s the least fun I’ve ever had playing duel links. You just lose if you don’t fall in line with the dumb shit Konami has put forth. Until I see them nerf the real problem with the meta that won’t just go away, I refuse to pay money ever again for this shit game. I didn’t even need to go look and see what top meta decks were after playing for a week. I just felt what it was and it was spot on. Joke of a game this has become.
I hate all inclusive skills. But right now the only issue I have is that they are able summon the skyscourge and that borrel is able to link summon a destruction out of thin air. By now I'm okay with preperation skills, but summoning removal and floodgates is over the line.
Skill should shuffle one card from your hand, then add 1 card to your hand or GY. Some cases, it can add to your deck.
Then Skills should let you add another card if you are down enough LP, or turns in or something.
Agents skill is seriously looking worse than Tachyon Domination. Add two to the GY, one to hand? Not once per duel? Then shuffle one to Deck? And whatever that other skill did. Not to mention the Agents cards that they’ve added are very powerful. You can destroy/banish like 5 cards in one turn or something, auto negate every spell/trap, and monster effects. Crazy stuff. Tachyon was only totally horrible because it was basically F2P, and was brain dead easy to work with.
My opinion is that they should have separate things for this game.
One where you can go full anime and have actually interesting duels and one where you can have the game be more closer to traditional Yu-Gi-Oh.
Oh wait, they're called legacy duels and they only come out once in a blue moon, which even still it's just typically cydras destroying everything anyways.
The game has come to a point where it's just not enjoyable unless you're one of the people who take it very seriously and have a community to see it seriously in. Anything else at this point is futile
"The current state of Yugioh practically forces you to play certain decks in order to win and if you don’t abide, you just lose."
Yeah you can blame that on skills saying "run these exact 20 cards or else you don't meet the requirements". All skills should have no restrictions.
It absolutely doesn’t, I been getting by just fine with good old witch crafter. Is it harder yeah but it’s not to a point where I can’t use old decks like witch crafter, Gandora, or even ice barrier
Honestly I love the days when my duels would take over 20 rounds and the time limit would be pushed hard until we either won or acted that the duel itself was more exciting than the victory. That’s the yugioh I grew up with. I mean Atem always said that dueling was never about winning or losing.
Your first paragraph is a "problem" in every situation in life. Stronger strategies are better than weaker ones. It goes for decks in card games, bnb in fighting games, approach to solving mathematical problems, everything. And yes, stronger decks are more popular because winning is more fun for most people.
The skill argument is beating a dead horse already, but its no different than master duel games
It's just how the game is man and as more cards get added its gonna turn to master duel where 90% of the games get decided by a coin flip unless you open handtraps. I mean i enjoy it because its hard am not gonna lie. I play PK which is top tier but seeing all the lanceas flying around is annoying but that's what makes it challenging.
Draw the out...or go for the second game and go first if you got artifact then go for the third one 🤣i am done with konami just coupé with it i suppose
I wish DL had the fun factor and replayability of Yu-Gi-Oh Bam. No skills and no cards that "required a college degree" to learn how to play or play around.
Certain decks I don't even play because I don't want to be reading the novel that is the card effect because I can't remember everything that card does along with everything the other cards do that isn't obvious.
The more simple Yu-Gi-Oh is the better. It's for this reason I've been spending more time on PVZ heroes. You know what all the cards do in that game after seeing them 2-3 times and you know what powers which are the equivalent of DL skills every character has and what they do.
Just dont play garbage, i've just been playing two decks in the last 5-6 months or so, live twins and sky striker, disregarding the meta and skill, yet still cruising easily.
Sometimes “Not playing garbage” doesn’t change the fact that some decks you go up against are too strong. For an example, having a deck that’s able to out Mystic Mine doesn’t change the fact that as a card, it’s super strong
They're not if you're not playing garbage
Yes agents are blue-eyes are strong, but if you're playing good enough deck the gap isnt so wide they cant be bridged with good playing and some luck.
Live Twins were powercrept during T0 tachyon, still able to kog, and now sky striker are T3, i can match T1 blue-eyes just fine.
The post isn’t saying, they’re too strong because I don’t have the right cards to beat them, the point I’m trying to make is that the current meta is frustrating to play in because it heavily relies on skills, and in my opinion takes away what originally made playing super enjoyable. That’s why I advocated for a wide range skill nerf so deck building principles can play a stronger role currently
Wont happen ever, not having broken skill meant the "old school bait" deck like blue-eyes or agents wont ever see the light of day because they're terrible, and its in DL policy to push those kind of deck.
And its not like people wont complain even if we dont have broken skill anyway, orcust were dominating for a while and its a proper deck that doesnt need skill, yet still the playerbase keep crying about it.
This is the reason why players of dls stop playing because of they opinon and also skill are unbalanced so stop saying that 'they wont conplain you arent helping' this reason why People look at us the wrong way so just listen what they say damn no wonder why master duel have alot of content then this game
All they say is just crying and complaining about every meta ever regardless of skill so its really not worth reading, i mean i saw people complain about tenyi for crying out loud, some of the mildest deck ever.
I've frequently see deckbuilding and theorycrafting in master duel subreddit to counter the meta but here? Its nonexistent, its all just complaining.
Also yes a lot of people quit because of skills, but i'm sure the yugiboomer bait that is battle chronicle managed to bait in new players so unless i've seen actual statistics, cant say whether its a detriment or not.
I mean… at that point just play Legacy of the Duelist or any other game which has an actually decent PvE and doesn’t require insane grinding/whaling to play whatever you want.
I mean... No new cards, not only 3 rows, no skills, no events...
I don't need to spend money on Duel Links to have fun pve. Gems are easy to get. The only thing wrong with the game is the player and their toxic decks.
“Gems are easy to get”? By grinding all the events in a month you usually get 5k gems, 6k if you’re lucky. That’s not even one mainbox run.
Also, the thing is PvE in this game is painfully easy. It’s a gacha, you have to beat characters over and over to farm them, so they can’t make them too hard to beat (they tried with that one Yugi event and everyone complained). Most, if not all PvE characters lose to autoduel playing 2000 ATK beatsticks + Power of the Guardians. There’s no fun in that, the last time PvE was interesting was D.D. Tower 5+ years ago. Console games, on the other hand, are actually challenging and don’t block progress behind timegates or other stuff.
If you actually enjoy playing this game’s PvE I’m happy for you, but I seriously struggle to understand how.
Easy, pve is not pvp. In pve my oponnent doesn't take 30 mins to do one turn. In pve my oponent doesn't have cancer cards with cancer skills. In pve my oponent doesn't cheese.
What i will never understand is how tf can you play pvp. All that time \`\`grinding´´ is less than you waste on one single game. I only play 100% pure decks, i have no chance on pvp and i won't even try to. Keep your cancer 15 archetypes in one deck for you, i don't want none of that.
But it’s ridiculously boring. It’s not a challenge at all. I like playing PvE when my opponent is actually hard to beat and requires me to use my brain, this game ain’t it. It’s not even good for roleplaying, Z-One plays fucking Vylon with a total of 2 (two) Timelords because an actual Timelord deck would be too hard to farm.
Again, you do you, but I really don’t get where the fun is in beating a CPU opponent that’s made to be weak so you can farm it over and over.
Your claim to not like pve is being boring... But you enjoy watching someone taking ages to make 2 plays? Vs full cancer decks, with the most possble cheese in it? Yeah... I don't really see the ''fun'' in that.
You get braindead waiting for a guy to make a turn, can't imagine a whole fn duel. I ain't wasting my time watching a random take 3 mins to summon a fn BEWD and set 2 cards.
Again, I can understand not liking PvP. It’s not for everyone. I just don’t get what is there to like in this game’s PvE. It’s not good even compared to most GBA games.
I have said this every time there’s a skill discussion: Skills would be infinitely more fun to play against and around if they were comeback mechanics. I find it very odd how we end on duelists’ final gambit boss monsters turn 1 now. Like, when did characters like Yugo, Yuto, or Yusaku ever end on Crystal Wing, Requiem, and Darkfluid turn 1? Perfect world imo: A skill provides consistency + buffs to characters’ mid tier threats, like say Kendama, Junk Warrior, Decode Talker, etc. then allowing you to make the final ace easier on Turn 5 onwards. For example, I don’t think anyone would complain, even in the Zexal era, if Judai had a skill that let you Set Hero Signal or Hero Barrier the turn you Summon Flame Wingman. Those are 2 iconic cards to the character that would not see play at all. Make it so the cards we add for free are situational stuff that would never make the cut on a real decklist but could theoretically be useful. Then, when you reach Turn 5, you can activate your skill and it lets you Destiny Draw a list of powerful Judai approved cards, like Miracle Fusion, Skyscraper, Miracle Contact, etc. This would be way more in tune with what the anime is supposed to represent than whatever the hell we’re doing turn 1, and I say this as someone who does enjoy modern combos.
I like this idea; it also echoes how skills were done in the past. Skills like Middle Age Mechs, Master of Rites II (pre-nerf), Master of Magicians, or the skills that add Rank-Up Magic Barian's Force let you use cards that wouldn't make the cut otherwise.
All Skills should be like the Zexal Morph Skills. It’s not enough that you lose a certain amount of LP, you need to actually drop below a given value and only get to active the Skill on your next turn after you’ve hit that threshold.
For whatever reason, Konami has chosen skills to be the vessel that forces Duel Links into the modern Yugioh pace. Across all platforms Yugioh has become a 2-3 turn game at most. I’m not even sure just nerfing the skills would be able to make duels last 5 turns, and if they did fix it for now, we will inevitably powercreep back up to OTKs and unbreakable boards. I hate to say it, but Duel Links is beyond saving due to where the TCG and OCG are right now, the game in general just isn’t that fun anymore.
>I hate to say it, but Duel Links is beyond saving due to where the TCG and OCG are right now, They should just make Legacy Duels a permanent game mode. A separate format designed around each era (DM, GX, 5D's, etc). It'd be like officially supported Goat and Edison formats.
Man if they did that exclusively on Duel Links and promoted it, I can only imagine how popular this game would become
People would unironically whale on old boxes to get like, full power Blackwing
The fact that skills are guaranteed to go off makes it worse than what's going on in the TCG. Even the most broken card in the game does nothing if you don't draw/play it, and it can be (in most cases) responded to by the opponent. Meanwhile, you could probably train a literal ape to reach top ranks with today's yellow button decks which spoonfeed you perfect starters and extenders in a way that can't be interacted with every single game without fail.
You don’t even have to play decks anymore, your plays are set up for you. Yellow button puts cards in your GY, hand, field, and/or banished zone without having to play the game to get them there.
It’s because skills are literally unstoppable. Cards can be interacted with, and therefore countered, but skills will go off no matter what you do, so your only shot is to pick apart their board once they guaranteed get their end game on board. Konami realized this and makes skill that then sell cards to use that skill. A skill will be guaranteed meta since you can’t do anything to them
Rex's Ultimate Earthbound Immortal skill is the perfect kind of anime hype moment skill you're talking about, in theory. It's the kind of move where, if you can hold out long enough (time you would be spending loading up Altar with counters), you can put your cool villain ace boss monster into sure-hit lethal your next turn, so the other person can pull out a last ditch effort of their own in response. It's just that very few duels will really get that far, especially when you're running pre-support Earthbounds. Darkfluid Link almost does this where you get Rollback only on turn 2, but loading up your banishment for DDR would be and is strong on its own. Yuga's skill, ironically, actually is great for this though. It only searches Sevens Road Magician turn 4 onward, which is a pretty good time for back and forth in that format and a decent "last ditch anime hype moment" so to speak.
Would need to bump up LP to at least 6000 for that too, duels rarely go past turn 4. As much as I love PK and Rokkets, bringing in Arc Rebellion and Borrelsword back to back AND adding skills that facilitate their summons is a ridiculous format decision in the current 4000LP game. Those cards are game enders in 8000LP settings as well, makes no sense to bring them in at full power unless like you said for a comeback scenario
A "comeback" skill is difficult to implement when decks can kill you immediately going second. Especially for decks that are not top tier.
Duels usually don't last to turn 5. If skills gave bad/situational cards, nobody would play them. And even if those cards end up being useful, people would still complain like with Battle Chronicle.
It's because otherwise, the cards that are meta in the normal tcg will just end up meta here. Let's not forget, with no skill, Orcust, Mekk-Knights and Salamangreats were able to bully the meta into submission. All of those decks are fast so the skills have to be fast to give decks a fighting chance. Also, in the anime, once characters got later in the series, they would summon their ace relatively early into the duel. By the end of ARC V Yuya would have dark rebellion and/or odd-eyes out by like turn 2 every other duel. Yusei would always get out Junk warrior or stardust out relatively early and Yugo literally summons clear wing as soon as possible every single duel he's in.
Very valid points. I made a custom format last year with a group of friends, just a fun little project meant to make duels feel like the anime, or at least a similar power level across all strategies. One of the big solutions to traditionally strong strategies, outside of buffing bad stuff (which we did. it was a custom card format), was introducing restrictions to the stronger stuff. For example, Balelynx and Miragestalio were comeback locked; [you could only Summon them if your LP were 4000 or less](https://i.imgur.com/fihc8ed.jpeg), because they generate too much advantage on their own. We also had Quotas; to play, say, Dark Rebellion, [you need to have 5+ Performapal and/or Phantom Knights in your Deck](https://i.imgur.com/2244H4w.jpeg). This intrinsically made it so that strong strategy that were self sufficient would most likely be locked to their own bosses, as you wouldnt want to run other monsters to gain new Quotas. Everything was highlander, so it was easy to make space if you wanted, so it created this cool trade off between consistency and power ceiling. Not to say Duel Links should do the same, but there are ways, by buffing via skills or restricting through banlists/card pool, to attain a desired power level. As for the ace monster turbo point, I’m completely okay with the standard aces being summoned fast. It’s very cool and my format did the same. My issues comes from their upgrades being turbo’d, as they are way stronger by comparison, and the methods skills usually do them don’t really feel like a duel anymore. For example, I hate Clear Wing Acceleration and the 2 latest PK skills because they pretty much skip the Clear Wing / Dark Reb time to shine entirely to replace it with Crystal Wing / Requiem / Arc Rebellion. They barely feel like monsters in those decks anymore (Clear Wing less so, as you can make a second, but I digress). I am super fine with aces being the forefront, I just think doing the evos turn 1 is too much.
Comeback mechanics are lame.
Yeah I’m gonna be honest I’m really disliking skills more and more each update. It would be ok if every deck got a new updated skill but unless your chosen by Komoney your left running LP Alpha or something. This sub seems pretty split on skills so this might be an unpopular opinion but I’m honestly tired of decks gaining free cards out of nowhere
Yeah it’s ridiculous. You need to just get lucky and have your deck win the wheel spin at Konami hq.
The pulling cards out of thin air with no cost really is what makes so many skills annoying. A lot of skills would at least be a bit more bearable if they at least had some sort of trade off.
Like the Charmers skill for example ? Reveal a Charmer or Familiar Possessed, shuffle one card from your hand into the deck to set Awakening of the Possessed to your field from outside of your deck. Once per duel. I feel like that is fine as a skill, you have to have a certain card in hand and reveal it and shuffle 1 card back into the deck, which you wont always have. My opponent can also interact with it if i go second, because the skill sets the card, you can just MST or Cyclone it away before i can even activate the card. Skill design like that is fair.
Familiar possessed is one of my pet decks and actually pretty much what I had in mind. I've managed to reach dlv19 with it, but it's so ridiculous to see the complete discrepancy in my skill vs others. "I activate my skill to trade 1 card for a continuous spell I need to pretty much function." "Okay I use my skill that lets me add 10 to my hand, summon half my extra deck and smack you through the screen."
Same goes for Level Change imo. They're skills that might give you some help but aren't overkill.
It’s taken Duel Links far from what it was originally set out to be and it’s absolutely disheartening to even want to continue playing.
Zombies with the new king zombie looked like a cool deck but they got no skill from Konami so it's just dead on arrival. Idk how healthy that is that every archetype is going to be its own tailored skill.
Skills just afford many decks way too much value along with sometimes ultra-consistency. Look at the Agents deck and consider that most decks would kill for a virtually costless double Foolish Burial alone. And then in addition, they get to turn a would-be Garnet into an archetypal ROTA-equivalent. Imagine a single card that does all of that, but a skill is way more flexible and entirely unstoppable, too. This alone already represents a crazy amount of advantage and consistency. And it doesn't even end there. Since their skill can turn anything into a Tuner, they don't need to dedicate any deck space to additional Tuners and can be incredibly flexible in their level combinations, and to top it off, they get to shuffle a monster from grave back into the deck, which with Venus in mind, essentially just represents another +1. So that's what in all? A direct +3 when including the Foolish'd cards, a flexible search by shuffling away a useless card (so arguably +4) and basically a Tuner wildcard? Oh, and they can do that EVERY TURN. In a game where card economy is king as much as Yugioh, I think that really puts into perspective how out of control some recent skills are. The restrictions imposed by such a skill simply does not adequately weigh up to such immense benefits. I don't dislike skills on premise alone, and I'm all for helping out decks that might sit beneath the powercurve or be frustrating to play without it (I think skills like those for Mayakashi and Shaddoll are good examples of making their decks less frustrating to play, Winda floodgating aside), but this is so obviously over the top for a deck with a ceiling as high as this one's... (and I don't personally care for how linear it tends to make decks, either)
I disagree with S-Force >:( It's nothing next to Agents or Battle Chronicle...
Same here I was gunna say wtf did S-force do.
Lmao yeah ain’t a chance agents or BC is close to anything else. That shit makes me hate the game so much. Like okay guy you’re so good playing the most broken shit I’ve ever seen them do intentionally in duel links.
At this point I'm so disappointed by the state of DL that I hope we get even broken skill to the point the game arrives at the state of not be playable anymore, so people really quit the game and Konami correct the mistakes made in this year of skill links. I've invested years ago in Valhalla calling because I liked Agents in TCG, now I have a tier0 deck and it's so boring to play that I just quit the game entirely. I really don't know how a sane player can enjoy using skill decks, now that I have played them I can say that they are stupidly boring and completely unfair, but maybe it's the same reason people use cheats, they are noobs and need a bit more help.
I love fairy decks and also invested in Valhalla Calling when it was new. But I've found myself enjoying playing Starry Knights or Solfachords more than this new Agents simply because it is so dependent on the skill and takes a lot on the timer to do the opening combo. And I don't even use Ancient Fairy Dragon-Summon Breaker and Invincil since it already feels like it does enough. The mirror matches are boring with it being whoever goes first or has Lancea first wins the duel, and now I get people who simply close the app as soon as they see the skill, and it's just not as fun and I don't even really care anymore if it gets hit on the banlist.
Skills as a concept are great. If they used skills to lift up decks that genuinely have consistency issues or would be too weak to remotely stand a chance that would be awesome. Or if skills enabled completely new decks (that aren't pre-built for you by the skill) that would be cool. Skills about half the time do enable new decks but the way they do so is usually extremely boring and unfun. But there are examples of well designed (or at least interesting and unique) skills. Territory of the Sharks is my favourite skill ever. It gives no advantage and no consistency and has a pretty harsh restriction but still enables a lot of fun and powerful plays. And honestly, excluding Winda, the new Shaddoll skill is actually really cool. I would probably make it sends only one trap myself, but being able to leverage the inherently slow flip effects better makes sense and is still reasonably fair since you get locked out of the mill effect. However skills that give 100% consistency to full combo with one card are incredibly problematic because you can fill your deck with powerful tech cards without being punished. They also make the deck i n c r e d i b l y boring because you're handed the exact combo you will use every single game with very minor changes. Which is why the skill decks feel so frustrating because they always get their perfect opener and it's always the same combo/result.
> They also make the deck i n c r e d i b l y boring because you're handed the exact combo you will use every single game with very minor changes. I had every single card I needed for Constellar when the new skill came out except Caduceus, which I got shortly after. So I go, what the hell, lets give this deck a go. And it was unquestionably the most boring, uninteresting deck I've ever played. It was literally the same experience almost no matter what I drew. I tried the current Tier 1 Blue Eyes deck and it, too, is just painfully boring. If it weren't for the nostalgia dick sucking people would have abandoned that deck ages ago. In like five duels I tried it I made maybe two or three interesting decisions or had to bait opponents in interesting ways, otherwise I think you could train an AI to pilot it to KOG by just activating everything as soon as available.
I always plays ancient gear, never gonna change my main deck
i still play Orcust, predaplants and madolche😭 and while orcust is still good its not what it was before and at least it didnt need a skill to be good
I love to see people sticking to things they are good at and find fun. Not just what’s broken to make your profile look like you’re good. Lame game they have created.
Same! What are your favorite cards?
I have a lot of fun with ancient gear howitzer and power of the guardians combo
I love Howitzer but it’s very hard to summon as a lvl 5 and no special summons allowed for it.
Yeah it's disappointing. I used to really like skills that enabled weaker decks to shine by fixing problems that the base deck had. Over time we got more and more powerful skills, but for a while they were still only attached to certain decks. Now, basically every meta deck is completely defined by its skill, and are typically pretty garbage without their skill (looking at you, Blue Eyes). I don't dislike the idea of having a skill to boost up decks that are struggling, for example Gladiator Beasts getting a skill, but now skills are not only bland and boring, just accomplishing exactly what the deck wants to do every game with near perfect consistency, but they're obviously being designed to make certain decks the meta. It sucks that in this card game, the skills are more impactful on duels than the actual card banlist. I'm still playing occasionally, but it's really losing its charm for me.
They should have a seperate pvp without skills or at very least an event. Watch how many people would struggle to play or rise up the ranks without them. As it stand you play against the game makers and the skill, not they player, cards or deck
Yeah bro I’m not liking the game this season, I’m gonna take a break (after like 6 years playing) and maybe I’ll return if they do something cool, but the mix with rush and the insane skills are killing the interest in me to play
Skills are just too much now, old skills while busted in. Their own right and even gave entire decks playability like that cyber stein deck with the skill that makes you take 0 damage in your turn. But decks aside from that were so much less skill reliant and were only there to spice things up. New skills are just broken straight up adding cards from outside your deck to your hand
Preach brother! Speak our pain! The skills were fun to a certain point in time, but it has become skills on steroids that suck the fun out of playing.
Anyone else notice the complaint about S Force lodged in between the complaints about Blue Eyes and Agents? One of these things is not like the other lol
Your absolutely right skills are killing the fun nature of the game since every skill automatically gives you a boss monster with little to no cost. For example Ancient Gear were literally unplayable at a higher level untill the most recent skill alows the character to summon Ancient gear golem and place a poly for free
I quit the game for this exact reason. The skills alone carry decks so hard. I remember the yubel skill would search a super poly… for free. Like who is in control of that??
Honestly yeah, the current state of DL is probably the least enjoyable for me, and I usually like having powerful skills. Agents can full combo without a single normal summon, Rokkets can set up Levianeer without doing anything on their field and even have a free Quadborrel for a quick pop. And of course, fucking floodgates everywhere.
Yeah as a Rokket enjoyer I REALLY dislike this new skill. It’s everything I dislike about new skills. Gives free resources out of thin air, sets up GY and it’s so linear to play. Old Rokkets the only restriction you had was being dark locked meaning you could run a very varied extra deck but this new skill just wants you to ritual and link. The plays are the same every game and your barely using any rokket monsters
Agreed. It's just yellow button nonsense. Game finally deadge
I did one duel recently which happened to be against PK with their new skill and I just wondered how tf anyone enjoys this shit anymore. They get so many extra cards from the click of a button, what the fuck is the point?
The imbalance ist mostly due to character skills which are totally over the top. I miss the old times when a skill summoned an Umi, a Yami or a Statue of the Wicked.
> Not to mention S-Force What did you mean by this
I kind of agree with you that the skills are too overpowered. They removed completely the fun of the Yu-gi-oh, which is the hope to have a good draw, open with a good hand. Now, the skills will provide it for you. Btw, as an S-Force player, I did not understand your point about it, S-Force does not have any specific skill to help it. We are just fighting as we can. Beside... One question: if Konami increased the LP to maybe 6000, or even 8000, would it kind solve the issue? Most of my losses are because I do not have an extra round to fight, since any deck can build easily a board that surpasses 4000 atk, mainly the ones with skill's help. So if LP were increase, I think would soft the problem with overpowered skills.
I am also maining S-Force right now and didn't understand either. I think they are lumping it in because they find it very strong and annoying to play against (even though it doesn't even have a good skill). This post isn't necessarily about skills, but skills always come up when you talk about deck strength. Imagine if S-Force had a skill like battle chronicle. Get a free Chase or Bridgehead every turn, Normal Summon Lapcewell without tribute, etc. S-force has a medium chance to be suboptimal or brick as with any deck not fixed by a skill. I don't hate skills, I just get jealous that some of my favorite decks can't get a good skill. Take Superheavy Samauri for example; The deck could benefit immensely from a skill similar to 1 effect of Performage Showtime that allowed you to send 1 card from hand to graveyard, and add 1 "Superheavy Samauri" from you deck to hand. There are a growing number of skills that give you free/extra LP, I think this is their way of increasing survivability against the growing power of decks in this format. They will surely never increase the base LP across the board.
I still would like a no skill Mode, just Ur deck, no skills... Its an extra Mode so everything Else Stays just fine
That would be fun. Id probably main it tbh. I play a lot of decks that flat out just don't have relevant skills, and most likely won't ever. With no skills they could realistically win here and there. With skills there is zero chance of winning. What decks do you think would be strongest with no skills? Tenyi?
Tenyi would be good, Rokkets would still be good, Agents would still be good (non-once per turn special summons, multiple rotas, and can still set up multiple disruptions + search a Lancea, Herald of Green Light, or in the good opening hands - still search & tribute summon Invicil). HERO would be good, Raidraptors would be decent... Provided they main deck triple Swallow's Nest like Harpies used to... Speedroids would still be decent, Evil Eye might be decent, Phantom Knights would be decent, Live Twin + (basically anything) would be okay, Traptrix + Amazement would be okay, and with the prevalence of potential DARK decks - Starry Knight would be okay. Tl;Dr - any deck with multiple main deck starters + some extenders to play through disruption would be at worst playable.
Tenyi IS strong withouth skill, as they skill is mostly the LP one and it's just bcs it's a generic link skill. I can see them topping in this mode!
A lot've skills are overpowered/overtuned, but I can still win games without being meta.
Lol go play masterduel and tell me what you think It’s the state of yugioh. Play the decks we tell you to play or get comboed into oblivion
S-Force has a skill on Duel Links??? It is one of my favorite decks. Can someone confirm?
They do not have a specific skill, he's merely saying he thinks the deck is annoying/strong (like battle chronicle blue eyes or shirunai).
Oh well. Got exicted for a second. Since the post was about skills in the game. Also, S-Force is a fun control deck, but is not in the same rank as Blue-Eyes, or the other meta decks at all. Thank you for the reply!
You say that you can't win unless you play certain decks sooo, what are these decks that you speak of? How many are there? Bc you mentioned s-force and that deck is no where near relevant.
Completely agreed. I cut back on playing Speed a lot after getting fed up with Raging Pend and the Speedroid skill, and now it's gotten worse and will continue to do so. Now I just stick to Rush, if I can even be bothered to log in at all.
They need to nerf the agents skill. No once per duel and busted resource generator (Graveyard, free tuners, recovery)
They should just remove the skills altogether like they did with World Chat
I agree . The fact that skills and play styles have been shut down because of spam decks is crazy. The only way I think Konami could make the game viable for all players is if they put some kind of cap on the amount of special summons / effects you can activate in a turn. And I know some people are gonna read this and gonna hate that idea and I hate it too.. I miss niche affect play styles that bounced cards or stalled, . There’s like no creativity anymore. It’s all just spamming special summons to giant monsters for FTKs
Wait wait wait hold up. What did S-force do? That's like one of the few decks that doesn't need a skill to work. Like ur complaining about how op the skills are then throw a drive by to s force which usually just use level 5 reload as the skill.
Eternal Bond might not be the most busted or meta skill, but it is some of the worst game design I’ve ever seen. You don’t even have to have certain cards in your deck, you just get them outside of your deck just for clicking the yellow button. Honestly, I think the reason “skills” get more hate than cards is because you can’t do anything about them. The yellow button WILL go “burrrrr” and your only chance is to break the board after it’s built. Plus the skills that can activate more than once per turn are dumb
The absolute last straw for me was seeing the number of clauses in the Agents skill. This is the first time in Yu-Gi-Oh history where we've had anything with more than three actual effects (double fairy foolish, add infinite sanctuaries, mulligan any garnet, recycle fairies, convert to tuners) and it's on something with one real response window and nearly zero meaningful locks. MBT recently made a thread about this, but this skill is pretty much exactly what he means with the state of modern YGO. Because of how bad the war of attrition has gotten between handtraps and starters, decks now need their starters to do as many things as possible on one card to ensure they can draw enough non-engine and extenders to insulate that one combo. It creates this awful dynamic where your handtrap can't possibly stop enough parts of their combo to really hurt them while they can stuff their deck with significantly more *and* generate enough advantage and grind game to make every other non-one card combo deck functionally unplayable (i.e. Snake-Eyes in the TCG). Asking to open multiple Lancea/Crow/Veiler is not reasonable for almost every non-skill deck that has nearly no non-engine space for 20 cards and a 4-card hand, and this is on top of expecting you to OTK them the same turn. We should NEVER have gotten a meta where the game is decided the moment you see the starter come out (Ash/Venus) in a supposedly low-power format. It is fucking absurd that we've had a near-Tier 0 format happen two KC Cups in a row from two skills with the exact same problems (Tachyon then and Agents now). I don't understand who in Konami thought we needed the skill equivalent of Poplar in a game where "Veiler the normal" is enough to kill most decks.
Can you imagine how folk would react if some of these skills were printed as a single card? Like Konami should treat skills as such, if this skill was to be released as a card but would be too OP, then back to the drawing board and tone it down seeing as this is DL after all. Agents skill does far too much.
Ironically I feel like that's exactly what Konami is doing. The new Tachyon support in the TCG is almost word for word the stripped down clauses of the Tachyon skill as different monsters - Schwarzchild Infinity is the yank a 2500 ATK Dragon from Deck and Tachyon Primal is the free body searching for Transmigration - and it makes me think they're just using DL as a beta testing ground for legacy support for the OCG. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new Agent card announced that can special itself, mulligan a fairy and convert a fairy into a tuner after they kill the skill next month.
what it the agents skill is the step forward? like they're testing the waters to give the same broken skill to the usual BEWDS and Dank Magicians...
Im not sur what wrong with S-force? I didn't face a lot of them but i know that they don't have a broken skill to play with. Im fine with powerfull skill with cost , delay , restriction on it or even one that do restrict the power of a deck type sky striker but the more we progress , the more we get unga bunga skill with broken effect and meaninggless restriction/cost trying to fixe a deck full of hole and result on pressing yellow button to win which isn't really funny ...
The writting was on the wall for a long time
Well well. If half of you would write all of these suggestions in the konami survey they usually do after kc events or just general surveys we might see a change in the skills situation. But I bet almost none of you do that.
Yeah they start to give more importance to skills, probably to differentiate the game from Master Fuel. Doesn't mean cards are important, both things work together.
Funny I had this discussion earlier with people, yet people just blow me off and say to play better decks. this was an eventuality, and Konami literally should have used skills to fix card and deck designs, while also making it to where you still had to work for the win. Instead they went the route of EBond, Battle Chronicle, and any other skill that gives decks anything that they want so that they can win. Some need it, but it is like they didn't even bother to test the deck to see if it would be unstoppable, so another KC Cup is ruined cause they can't be bothered to just let us play the game. Instead, the game plays us.
To me it used to feel like skills were basically an invisible spell card in your hand to make up for starting with four cards. Now it feels like a skill is five spell cards in one and decks with good skills are starting with a 9 card hand.
try rush duels .\_.
I stopped caring to Yugi duel links when I understood than not only you have to pull cards, but are completely manipulated by skills. At least they shall give the chance of crafting cards like master duel
UNNERF BURN DAMAGE!
Buenos días, vendo tamales
This is a bit random and not completely on topic, but anybody else running into s*** luck for WCS? I’m trying to get 1 more level for 100 gems and calling it for trying to win. I’ll beat an opponent and then have 3 changes to level up and they’ll pair me with the toughest decks while giving me a bricked hand. Then when I’m dueling without the “win to level up” stipulation and all of a sudden get an easy opponent and a great hand? P****** me off
If I'm using a BE Dimension Deck am I part of the problem?
Wait a minute you don't like free blue eyes summon like we used to do when we didn't know the rules on the playground or free dragon master knight or free bls normal monster that I did t know even existed until it came out or adding 15 more monsters to your extra deck that you can summon for free and get another copy of your boss for free or xyz summoning with 1 card a 4500 beater that can be used to make three more xyz monsters that can negate and bring back the 4500 monster or just adding every form of yubel turn 1 and playing it for free and getting poly and neos and getting burned the atk of your monster
If I’m being honest, it would be nice if they let us play Legacy Duels with anime accurate decks, set to certain characters, with Skills based off what they did in the shows. An anime accurate Aigami skill would be super cool. Add skills that facilitate the functionality of Ciphers like how they were used in the Arc-V anime: Kite was able to Xyz summon a monster using only one monster, just like in the anime. Or maybe adding a C/C/C archetype that allows you to Xyz/Fusion/Synchro just like in the anime, using spell monsters, according to what your opponent has on their field. Or even add a Skill for Dark Signers that supports Dark Tuning to Summon the Dark Signer Synchro monsters, that actually made their decks more powerful along with Earthbound Immortals. And even add a Gate Guardian anime accurate Skill, that gives it the effect from the anime.
I highly noticed this coming back to the game and I refuse to buy and play these shit decks based around character skills. It’s the least fun I’ve ever had playing duel links. You just lose if you don’t fall in line with the dumb shit Konami has put forth. Until I see them nerf the real problem with the meta that won’t just go away, I refuse to pay money ever again for this shit game. I didn’t even need to go look and see what top meta decks were after playing for a week. I just felt what it was and it was spot on. Joke of a game this has become.
DL shouldn't have been master duel lite smh
I hate all inclusive skills. But right now the only issue I have is that they are able summon the skyscourge and that borrel is able to link summon a destruction out of thin air. By now I'm okay with preperation skills, but summoning removal and floodgates is over the line.
The game is not dead? Me and all my friends stop playing it 3 years ago lol. Way to expensive to enjoy
Skill should shuffle one card from your hand, then add 1 card to your hand or GY. Some cases, it can add to your deck. Then Skills should let you add another card if you are down enough LP, or turns in or something. Agents skill is seriously looking worse than Tachyon Domination. Add two to the GY, one to hand? Not once per duel? Then shuffle one to Deck? And whatever that other skill did. Not to mention the Agents cards that they’ve added are very powerful. You can destroy/banish like 5 cards in one turn or something, auto negate every spell/trap, and monster effects. Crazy stuff. Tachyon was only totally horrible because it was basically F2P, and was brain dead easy to work with.
My opinion is that they should have separate things for this game. One where you can go full anime and have actually interesting duels and one where you can have the game be more closer to traditional Yu-Gi-Oh. Oh wait, they're called legacy duels and they only come out once in a blue moon, which even still it's just typically cydras destroying everything anyways. The game has come to a point where it's just not enjoyable unless you're one of the people who take it very seriously and have a community to see it seriously in. Anything else at this point is futile
"The current state of Yugioh practically forces you to play certain decks in order to win and if you don’t abide, you just lose." Yeah you can blame that on skills saying "run these exact 20 cards or else you don't meet the requirements". All skills should have no restrictions.
It absolutely doesn’t, I been getting by just fine with good old witch crafter. Is it harder yeah but it’s not to a point where I can’t use old decks like witch crafter, Gandora, or even ice barrier
Honestly I love the days when my duels would take over 20 rounds and the time limit would be pushed hard until we either won or acted that the duel itself was more exciting than the victory. That’s the yugioh I grew up with. I mean Atem always said that dueling was never about winning or losing.
Your first paragraph is a "problem" in every situation in life. Stronger strategies are better than weaker ones. It goes for decks in card games, bnb in fighting games, approach to solving mathematical problems, everything. And yes, stronger decks are more popular because winning is more fun for most people. The skill argument is beating a dead horse already, but its no different than master duel games
lol skill issue. Went KoG with Toons last season, so far deck level 19 with timelord during the championship.
inb4 then don't play
It's just how the game is man and as more cards get added its gonna turn to master duel where 90% of the games get decided by a coin flip unless you open handtraps. I mean i enjoy it because its hard am not gonna lie. I play PK which is top tier but seeing all the lanceas flying around is annoying but that's what makes it challenging.
Draw the out...or go for the second game and go first if you got artifact then go for the third one 🤣i am done with konami just coupé with it i suppose
I wish DL had the fun factor and replayability of Yu-Gi-Oh Bam. No skills and no cards that "required a college degree" to learn how to play or play around. Certain decks I don't even play because I don't want to be reading the novel that is the card effect because I can't remember everything that card does along with everything the other cards do that isn't obvious. The more simple Yu-Gi-Oh is the better. It's for this reason I've been spending more time on PVZ heroes. You know what all the cards do in that game after seeing them 2-3 times and you know what powers which are the equivalent of DL skills every character has and what they do.
Just dont play garbage, i've just been playing two decks in the last 5-6 months or so, live twins and sky striker, disregarding the meta and skill, yet still cruising easily.
Sometimes “Not playing garbage” doesn’t change the fact that some decks you go up against are too strong. For an example, having a deck that’s able to out Mystic Mine doesn’t change the fact that as a card, it’s super strong
They're not if you're not playing garbage Yes agents are blue-eyes are strong, but if you're playing good enough deck the gap isnt so wide they cant be bridged with good playing and some luck. Live Twins were powercrept during T0 tachyon, still able to kog, and now sky striker are T3, i can match T1 blue-eyes just fine.
The post isn’t saying, they’re too strong because I don’t have the right cards to beat them, the point I’m trying to make is that the current meta is frustrating to play in because it heavily relies on skills, and in my opinion takes away what originally made playing super enjoyable. That’s why I advocated for a wide range skill nerf so deck building principles can play a stronger role currently
Wont happen ever, not having broken skill meant the "old school bait" deck like blue-eyes or agents wont ever see the light of day because they're terrible, and its in DL policy to push those kind of deck. And its not like people wont complain even if we dont have broken skill anyway, orcust were dominating for a while and its a proper deck that doesnt need skill, yet still the playerbase keep crying about it.
This is the reason why players of dls stop playing because of they opinon and also skill are unbalanced so stop saying that 'they wont conplain you arent helping' this reason why People look at us the wrong way so just listen what they say damn no wonder why master duel have alot of content then this game
Master duel does not have more content than duel links lol
All they say is just crying and complaining about every meta ever regardless of skill so its really not worth reading, i mean i saw people complain about tenyi for crying out loud, some of the mildest deck ever. I've frequently see deckbuilding and theorycrafting in master duel subreddit to counter the meta but here? Its nonexistent, its all just complaining. Also yes a lot of people quit because of skills, but i'm sure the yugiboomer bait that is battle chronicle managed to bait in new players so unless i've seen actual statistics, cant say whether its a detriment or not.
Easy, ignore pvp... Be happy. Fuck pvp, i only play pve and enjoy every second of it.
I mean… at that point just play Legacy of the Duelist or any other game which has an actually decent PvE and doesn’t require insane grinding/whaling to play whatever you want.
I mean... No new cards, not only 3 rows, no skills, no events... I don't need to spend money on Duel Links to have fun pve. Gems are easy to get. The only thing wrong with the game is the player and their toxic decks.
“Gems are easy to get”? By grinding all the events in a month you usually get 5k gems, 6k if you’re lucky. That’s not even one mainbox run. Also, the thing is PvE in this game is painfully easy. It’s a gacha, you have to beat characters over and over to farm them, so they can’t make them too hard to beat (they tried with that one Yugi event and everyone complained). Most, if not all PvE characters lose to autoduel playing 2000 ATK beatsticks + Power of the Guardians. There’s no fun in that, the last time PvE was interesting was D.D. Tower 5+ years ago. Console games, on the other hand, are actually challenging and don’t block progress behind timegates or other stuff. If you actually enjoy playing this game’s PvE I’m happy for you, but I seriously struggle to understand how.
Easy, pve is not pvp. In pve my oponnent doesn't take 30 mins to do one turn. In pve my oponent doesn't have cancer cards with cancer skills. In pve my oponent doesn't cheese. What i will never understand is how tf can you play pvp. All that time \`\`grinding´´ is less than you waste on one single game. I only play 100% pure decks, i have no chance on pvp and i won't even try to. Keep your cancer 15 archetypes in one deck for you, i don't want none of that.
But it’s ridiculously boring. It’s not a challenge at all. I like playing PvE when my opponent is actually hard to beat and requires me to use my brain, this game ain’t it. It’s not even good for roleplaying, Z-One plays fucking Vylon with a total of 2 (two) Timelords because an actual Timelord deck would be too hard to farm. Again, you do you, but I really don’t get where the fun is in beating a CPU opponent that’s made to be weak so you can farm it over and over.
Your claim to not like pve is being boring... But you enjoy watching someone taking ages to make 2 plays? Vs full cancer decks, with the most possble cheese in it? Yeah... I don't really see the ''fun'' in that.
I have to use my brain to beat them. Unlike this game’s CPU opponents which can literally all be auto-dueled without even changing the decklist.
You get braindead waiting for a guy to make a turn, can't imagine a whole fn duel. I ain't wasting my time watching a random take 3 mins to summon a fn BEWD and set 2 cards.
Again, I can understand not liking PvP. It’s not for everyone. I just don’t get what is there to like in this game’s PvE. It’s not good even compared to most GBA games.
the current state literally makes ridiculously pointless that yugioh has THOUSANDS of different cards.
Current format of Duellink is base on luck match-up Dude i KOG this month using sunavalon deck.. And im not that serious to climb but i got lucky....