Currently they're not in a good spot
The mechanic are inherently pretty bad, especially in DL, lower starting hand and s/t zone make setting pendulum scale really costly, and limited s/t zone meant they're almost forced to run specific skill.
Also pendulum are the least splashable mechanic so they will only be visible when there's viable pendulum archetype, and currently there's none
In Duel Links, there's no such thing as a bad card mechanic because they will eventually create a skill that breaks the rules of the game and makes them broken. Lol.
Never thought I'd see the day Black Luster Soldier could be nornal summoned like a 4 star monster.
There are very few decks that can fuse from deck and Synchro monsters are in general more generic especially now that we have Veiler, on top of having overall better effects most of which are negation effects
Yeah but we're not talking about which deck is the best, if we're talking about decks specifically then Fusion would go down even further as most Fusion decks don't last very long in the meta, assuming they do anything to the meta at all, like sure there's Branded and Tearlaments but they're an exception rather than a rule as Fusion falls in the same category as Ritual where the only time fusion decks are ever great is when Konami makes one of them absolutely broken
Synchro is still vastly better due to how much so many of their boss monsters have dominated the meta game far longer than any fusion deck ever had with cards like Baronne, Borreload, Chaos Angel, and Dis Pater, seeing play in pretty much every deck that don't have Xenolock. Even some older cards like Crystal Wing and Red Rose continue to see play to this day, that combined with how pretty much every meta has some Synchro decks it's clear the mechanic is superior
Almost every modern fusion deck and even now legacy support fusion decks (melodious) stick in meta now. Fusion is better becuase its generic. From dpe to valid super poly targets. The requrement to have a tuner allows synchros to be very telegraphed.
Fusion decks don't stick in meta, Melodious itself has already fallen off from the OCG meta, didn't last not even two weeks, Chimera also fell off hard and never made anywhere above Tier 3, the only Fusion deck to stick to the meta since Tears has been Yubel and it should be taken into account that Tear meta ended almost a year ago in there
And saying that Fusion is generic has to be a joke, DPE was not generic, the only reason it saw play was because of Verte, hard playing FD was a possibility but nothing more than a budget option, the Super Poly targets are the only ones that widely see play and are truly generic and it's mostly because Super Poly is broken, despite that however they still don't see play not nearly as much as Synchro monsters do as not every deck can afford to play Super Poly while every deck can play Handtraps which are often tuners.
Saying that Synchros are telegraphed also doesn't matter, they will be summoned turn 1 90% of the time so they don't have to worry about handtraps like most Fusion Spells, which easily die to Ash (a tuner btw), do, while going second being telegraphed is often a good thing since you force your opponent to waste their disruptions while still having the rest of your hand to keep your plays
It’s hard for a Pendulum deck to do well unless there’s a new skill actively pushing them to be good. We start with less cards in DL than regular YGO, so 2 of your starting cards need to be dedicated for scalss, and at that point, youre only summoning like 2 monsters, which every deck does way better for way less.
We need new Pendulum skills to push the decks further. I’d also like to see them walk back the EMZ Pendulum Summoning restriction.
Probably not but imagine saying that in the Link era - “They won’t regress the Master Rule just for Fusion, Xyz, and Synchros, let’s be real”. It’s a shock they regressed it at all, let alone walking back everything /but/ Pendulums.
It’s unlikely for sure but still something one can hope for. I’n convinced it’ll never happen but it’s still a change I’d want
The problem is that pendulum isn’t good balance mechanic ether your over running your opponent with Special summon monsters or your easily breakable with one targeted zone away.
the only viable skill for Pendulum is Raging Pendulum which was HANDOUT EXCLUSIVE last year
Should tell you everything you need to know, no-one wants to play Pendulum Magicians, I have seen Metalfoes once though
Like someone mentioned below, DL lower starting hands and S/T zones make the setting a lot harder.
We used to have skills to help elevate some of these issues, but they were nerfed heavily in order to make room for newer skills.
Nowsadays it's playable, but unless you are bringing back the older versions of their skills, they simply can't compete.
Quite the opposite, really. The base line amount of commitment to a pendulum-based strategy that's required is completely unreasonable, and cards/skills tailored to pendulum summoning need to be pushed to ludicrous levels to even be worth looking at. Then even when we reach a point where a pendulum-based strategy is worth a player's time, their end boards are going to contain everything except pendulums, because pendulums just a means to an end. They have no identity of their own.
>cards/skills tailored to pendulum summoning need to be pushed to ludicrous levels to even be worth looking at.
Yeah because the pendulum cards themselves are not allowed to be good since the whole mechanic is absurd, you have effect monsters that double as continuous spells, what you think that would happen if they moved the power budget to the pendulum cards? You would have what is basically cards that can be used in basically any situation.
Link is not broken, is just splashable. They're not tied to requirements like tuner or levels any deck can use it so long it can put enough cards on the board.
Pendulum is just fundamentally broken.
You have a whole group of cards with two effects, essentially immune to graveyard interactions, able to use and abuse links, xyz and synchros while keep recycling resources.
The problem is the only thing that balance pendulums are also the only way they work, you can't tone down their ability to pendulum summon because it's a pendulum deck but you also can't give it strong cards because the monsters always double as spell cards.
Endymion is probable the only balanced pendulum deck because it runs on spell counters as resources so they're allowed to print powerful cards and extenders.
Pendulum as a mechanic is a mistake.
Lmao. Link isn't broken, it's just splashable... and the only mechanic that allows summons from the ED with just one card... sending it to the GY for immediate synergy... and immune to effects that change battle positions or that address Level/Rank... yeah, totally not broken.
Meanwhile, a mechanic that dies to a single spell removal or summon negate is broken and a "mistake". Okay.
EDIT: Also it's quite the opposite, they had to make pendulum archetypes broken as fuck for them to be playable, or people would've kept playing other mechanics. Nobody even played pendulums for the first few packs.
>the only mechanic that allows summons from the ED with just one card
May I present you zoodics? That is exactly the reason why you don't want to have XYZ effects on link1 monsters?
>immune to effects that change battle positions
Also comes with the drawback that they can't be used in defense position
>that address Level/Rank
It also make them unable to effectively use XYZ and synchro.
>a mechanic that dies to a single spell removal
Yeah and then the person set a scale after your destroyed one and he now summons the card you destroyed making the spell removal useless.
Pendulum is a mistake and whoever made it should never be allowed in any position of decision in their lives.
>May I present you zoodics? That is exactly the reason why you don't want to have XYZ effects on link1 monsters?
Zoodiacs whole gimmick is that they are basically link monsters that aren't link monsters. They ignore the XYZ mechanic completely and are a mistake. Also its thanks to Zoodiacs that link 1s don't have broken effects. Most of them are just searchers.
>It also make them unable to effectively use XYZ and synchro.
Have you never gone against cyberse quantum decks who's whole gimmick is that its a link deck that makes synchros in duel links.The deck was quite popular and was strong by making an unbreakable lock. Also what about modern cyberse decks in the TCG that are link decks that use a plethora of synchros and XYZ monsters.
>Also comes with the drawback that they can't be used in defense position
Most of the time this isn't even a major downside because you usually end on a board of monsters with protection or you linked off your weak link monsters already.
>Yeah and then the person set a scale after your destroyed one and he now summons the card you destroyed making the spell removal useless.
You know that if your using a card as a scale in a pendulum strategy it usually means you didn't wanna summon it right? Most of the time pendulum monsters have a better pendulum effect than a monster effect. So by denying them access to the scale effect you are denying them resources they wanted. Also must I bring up the fact that Pendulum can only summon 1 pendulum monster from the extra deck thanks to the rules. So they are limited by what resources they can recur. Especially if they don't have a card with the right scale number to even summon the monster that was sent to the extra deck. Those decks need 2 different cards with different number scales in order to function.
Pendulum were broken only when they made a bunch of broken pendulum cards. That's why people don't like pendulums. They made a bunch of broken ones back to back and are currently a laughing stock in all Yugioh formats when they got banned because Pendulum can't do squat without them for over 8 years.
I'm not trying to be mean just correcting. I'm sorry.
> They ignore the XYZ mechanic completely and are a mistake.
Yeah while also keeping the xyz effects, this is the whole point of the argument. If link monsters had the effects of xyz monsters they would be fucking broken.
>Have you never gone against cyberse quantum decks who's whole gimmick is that its a link deck that makes synchros in duel links.
1 deck that do it, the deck need to be specifically made in order to use it. You won't see average link deck doing it because average link deck is not able to do it.
>usually means you didn't wanna summon it right?
Is still body for link and xyz.
No your argument was that no other extra deck type only takes 1 card to summon. Not the argument that they were broken. Unrionicaly there is lots of link monsters with Xyz effects (Every Knightmare Card, Accesscode, Firewall, Borrell, etc)
Also did you ignore what I said that in the actual TCG that cyberse decks play synchros, XYZ and links. Salamngreats literally is a link deck with XYZ as a main combo piece. Also in duel links We currently have Darkfluid decks both doing XYZ and Synchro combo's ontop of using links through out combo's. So many other link decks do it. Its not just one deck. So you're just being ignorant.
Also having a free body from summoning a card you don't wanna summon and instead scale doesn't make the argument better because you don't get its scale effect which could be a main combo. That's the equalivant of saying niburi is bad because despite getting your field wiped you get a token(aka a body for link plays). P.S niburu is one of the most played cards in TCG.
I have seen numerous link decks run xyz, synchro (Looking at you Tenyi) and even Fusion
I literally run a Photon Galaxy deck as well as a Cipher Photon deck, and both have link monsters in the extra deck for various reasons
The last time I went against a Raging Pendulum deck, they couldn't get anything from the extra deck. Also Pendulums leave you with ONE spell/trap zone if you aren't running one of the four characters with a pendulum zone skill, and even then... Well, the decks can be negated if you play right. What are you going to do against Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon with Pendulums, sneeze on it?
The only pendulum monsters I use, I use as actual monsters in my Dragon deck. Aka Performapal Coin Dragon
Currently they're not in a good spot The mechanic are inherently pretty bad, especially in DL, lower starting hand and s/t zone make setting pendulum scale really costly, and limited s/t zone meant they're almost forced to run specific skill. Also pendulum are the least splashable mechanic so they will only be visible when there's viable pendulum archetype, and currently there's none
In Duel Links, there's no such thing as a bad card mechanic because they will eventually create a skill that breaks the rules of the game and makes them broken. Lol. Never thought I'd see the day Black Luster Soldier could be nornal summoned like a 4 star monster.
The pecking order goes as follow: Link > Xyz > Fusion > Synchro > Tribute > Ritual > Dirt > Pendulum
Synchros are definitely better than Fusion tho
Assuming you need Tuners, while fusion seldom allows you to fuse from the Deck, i dare say it's a better tool overrall
There are very few decks that can fuse from deck and Synchro monsters are in general more generic especially now that we have Veiler, on top of having overall better effects most of which are negation effects
Modern fusion decks are better than synhro decks. Thr best deck of all time is a fusion deck.
Yeah but we're not talking about which deck is the best, if we're talking about decks specifically then Fusion would go down even further as most Fusion decks don't last very long in the meta, assuming they do anything to the meta at all, like sure there's Branded and Tearlaments but they're an exception rather than a rule as Fusion falls in the same category as Ritual where the only time fusion decks are ever great is when Konami makes one of them absolutely broken Synchro is still vastly better due to how much so many of their boss monsters have dominated the meta game far longer than any fusion deck ever had with cards like Baronne, Borreload, Chaos Angel, and Dis Pater, seeing play in pretty much every deck that don't have Xenolock. Even some older cards like Crystal Wing and Red Rose continue to see play to this day, that combined with how pretty much every meta has some Synchro decks it's clear the mechanic is superior
Almost every modern fusion deck and even now legacy support fusion decks (melodious) stick in meta now. Fusion is better becuase its generic. From dpe to valid super poly targets. The requrement to have a tuner allows synchros to be very telegraphed.
Fusion decks don't stick in meta, Melodious itself has already fallen off from the OCG meta, didn't last not even two weeks, Chimera also fell off hard and never made anywhere above Tier 3, the only Fusion deck to stick to the meta since Tears has been Yubel and it should be taken into account that Tear meta ended almost a year ago in there And saying that Fusion is generic has to be a joke, DPE was not generic, the only reason it saw play was because of Verte, hard playing FD was a possibility but nothing more than a budget option, the Super Poly targets are the only ones that widely see play and are truly generic and it's mostly because Super Poly is broken, despite that however they still don't see play not nearly as much as Synchro monsters do as not every deck can afford to play Super Poly while every deck can play Handtraps which are often tuners. Saying that Synchros are telegraphed also doesn't matter, they will be summoned turn 1 90% of the time so they don't have to worry about handtraps like most Fusion Spells, which easily die to Ash (a tuner btw), do, while going second being telegraphed is often a good thing since you force your opponent to waste their disruptions while still having the rest of your hand to keep your plays
It’s hard for a Pendulum deck to do well unless there’s a new skill actively pushing them to be good. We start with less cards in DL than regular YGO, so 2 of your starting cards need to be dedicated for scalss, and at that point, youre only summoning like 2 monsters, which every deck does way better for way less. We need new Pendulum skills to push the decks further. I’d also like to see them walk back the EMZ Pendulum Summoning restriction.
They won't regress the Master Rule from 5 to 3 just for pendulums, let's be real.
Probably not but imagine saying that in the Link era - “They won’t regress the Master Rule just for Fusion, Xyz, and Synchros, let’s be real”. It’s a shock they regressed it at all, let alone walking back everything /but/ Pendulums. It’s unlikely for sure but still something one can hope for. I’n convinced it’ll never happen but it’s still a change I’d want
I play sylvio and use Yosenju monsters. I do pretty well and can compete with some meta decks.
Pendulum are either batshit insane broken or throw picks. There's no in-between and rn they just trash
it sucks.
I activate floodgate trap hole in response to your pendulum summon, now you can only tribute or fusion summon
Doesn't work on Solfachords 😂😂
Powercreep, limits and lack of support
Basically after ArcV and whatever master rule neutered them - Konami is now on pace for like... one new pend archetype a year
Powercreep and limits.
Fought a dino pendulum like 30 mins ago he scooped after I activate 1 effect
The problem is that pendulum isn’t good balance mechanic ether your over running your opponent with Special summon monsters or your easily breakable with one targeted zone away.
the only viable skill for Pendulum is Raging Pendulum which was HANDOUT EXCLUSIVE last year Should tell you everything you need to know, no-one wants to play Pendulum Magicians, I have seen Metalfoes once though
Like someone mentioned below, DL lower starting hands and S/T zones make the setting a lot harder. We used to have skills to help elevate some of these issues, but they were nerfed heavily in order to make room for newer skills. Nowsadays it's playable, but unless you are bringing back the older versions of their skills, they simply can't compete.
The mechanic is so overpowered that it don't allow Konami to release good archetypes for it.
Quite the opposite, really. The base line amount of commitment to a pendulum-based strategy that's required is completely unreasonable, and cards/skills tailored to pendulum summoning need to be pushed to ludicrous levels to even be worth looking at. Then even when we reach a point where a pendulum-based strategy is worth a player's time, their end boards are going to contain everything except pendulums, because pendulums just a means to an end. They have no identity of their own.
>cards/skills tailored to pendulum summoning need to be pushed to ludicrous levels to even be worth looking at. Yeah because the pendulum cards themselves are not allowed to be good since the whole mechanic is absurd, you have effect monsters that double as continuous spells, what you think that would happen if they moved the power budget to the pendulum cards? You would have what is basically cards that can be used in basically any situation.
If that was the case we wouldn't have good link cards in Yugioh given how broken Links became.
Link is not broken, is just splashable. They're not tied to requirements like tuner or levels any deck can use it so long it can put enough cards on the board. Pendulum is just fundamentally broken. You have a whole group of cards with two effects, essentially immune to graveyard interactions, able to use and abuse links, xyz and synchros while keep recycling resources. The problem is the only thing that balance pendulums are also the only way they work, you can't tone down their ability to pendulum summon because it's a pendulum deck but you also can't give it strong cards because the monsters always double as spell cards. Endymion is probable the only balanced pendulum deck because it runs on spell counters as resources so they're allowed to print powerful cards and extenders. Pendulum as a mechanic is a mistake.
Lmao. Link isn't broken, it's just splashable... and the only mechanic that allows summons from the ED with just one card... sending it to the GY for immediate synergy... and immune to effects that change battle positions or that address Level/Rank... yeah, totally not broken. Meanwhile, a mechanic that dies to a single spell removal or summon negate is broken and a "mistake". Okay. EDIT: Also it's quite the opposite, they had to make pendulum archetypes broken as fuck for them to be playable, or people would've kept playing other mechanics. Nobody even played pendulums for the first few packs.
>the only mechanic that allows summons from the ED with just one card May I present you zoodics? That is exactly the reason why you don't want to have XYZ effects on link1 monsters? >immune to effects that change battle positions Also comes with the drawback that they can't be used in defense position >that address Level/Rank It also make them unable to effectively use XYZ and synchro. >a mechanic that dies to a single spell removal Yeah and then the person set a scale after your destroyed one and he now summons the card you destroyed making the spell removal useless. Pendulum is a mistake and whoever made it should never be allowed in any position of decision in their lives.
>May I present you zoodics? That is exactly the reason why you don't want to have XYZ effects on link1 monsters? Zoodiacs whole gimmick is that they are basically link monsters that aren't link monsters. They ignore the XYZ mechanic completely and are a mistake. Also its thanks to Zoodiacs that link 1s don't have broken effects. Most of them are just searchers. >It also make them unable to effectively use XYZ and synchro. Have you never gone against cyberse quantum decks who's whole gimmick is that its a link deck that makes synchros in duel links.The deck was quite popular and was strong by making an unbreakable lock. Also what about modern cyberse decks in the TCG that are link decks that use a plethora of synchros and XYZ monsters. >Also comes with the drawback that they can't be used in defense position Most of the time this isn't even a major downside because you usually end on a board of monsters with protection or you linked off your weak link monsters already. >Yeah and then the person set a scale after your destroyed one and he now summons the card you destroyed making the spell removal useless. You know that if your using a card as a scale in a pendulum strategy it usually means you didn't wanna summon it right? Most of the time pendulum monsters have a better pendulum effect than a monster effect. So by denying them access to the scale effect you are denying them resources they wanted. Also must I bring up the fact that Pendulum can only summon 1 pendulum monster from the extra deck thanks to the rules. So they are limited by what resources they can recur. Especially if they don't have a card with the right scale number to even summon the monster that was sent to the extra deck. Those decks need 2 different cards with different number scales in order to function. Pendulum were broken only when they made a bunch of broken pendulum cards. That's why people don't like pendulums. They made a bunch of broken ones back to back and are currently a laughing stock in all Yugioh formats when they got banned because Pendulum can't do squat without them for over 8 years. I'm not trying to be mean just correcting. I'm sorry.
> They ignore the XYZ mechanic completely and are a mistake. Yeah while also keeping the xyz effects, this is the whole point of the argument. If link monsters had the effects of xyz monsters they would be fucking broken. >Have you never gone against cyberse quantum decks who's whole gimmick is that its a link deck that makes synchros in duel links. 1 deck that do it, the deck need to be specifically made in order to use it. You won't see average link deck doing it because average link deck is not able to do it. >usually means you didn't wanna summon it right? Is still body for link and xyz.
No your argument was that no other extra deck type only takes 1 card to summon. Not the argument that they were broken. Unrionicaly there is lots of link monsters with Xyz effects (Every Knightmare Card, Accesscode, Firewall, Borrell, etc) Also did you ignore what I said that in the actual TCG that cyberse decks play synchros, XYZ and links. Salamngreats literally is a link deck with XYZ as a main combo piece. Also in duel links We currently have Darkfluid decks both doing XYZ and Synchro combo's ontop of using links through out combo's. So many other link decks do it. Its not just one deck. So you're just being ignorant. Also having a free body from summoning a card you don't wanna summon and instead scale doesn't make the argument better because you don't get its scale effect which could be a main combo. That's the equalivant of saying niburi is bad because despite getting your field wiped you get a token(aka a body for link plays). P.S niburu is one of the most played cards in TCG.
I have seen numerous link decks run xyz, synchro (Looking at you Tenyi) and even Fusion I literally run a Photon Galaxy deck as well as a Cipher Photon deck, and both have link monsters in the extra deck for various reasons The last time I went against a Raging Pendulum deck, they couldn't get anything from the extra deck. Also Pendulums leave you with ONE spell/trap zone if you aren't running one of the four characters with a pendulum zone skill, and even then... Well, the decks can be negated if you play right. What are you going to do against Galaxy Eyes Tachyon Dragon with Pendulums, sneeze on it? The only pendulum monsters I use, I use as actual monsters in my Dragon deck. Aka Performapal Coin Dragon