Brain Droppings: Random thoughts on different yugi things.

This is the first, and maybe last, but probably not, one of these types of things that I will do.  Basically, Brain Droppings is where I'll clear my head of things that I've wanted to say, but don't really want to write articles about.  Each of these will be like a mini article.  Sounds like fun.

Et3rnal13 on Potential

The tears, I feed off them.

Basically, you will hear a lot of people say "oh, this and this deck has potential", every time someone does that I just cry a little inside.  Now, it's perfectly reasonable to say something has potential in a format by looking at the cards in front of you.  I could say, for example, at the start of the September format that Dragunities had potential because they can pump out  hard hitting combos like the other decks that are being speculated as top of the format,  This wouldn't be a wrong thing to say (although, it did end up wrong in hindsight, because consistency matters), especially if I was verifying it through testing at the start of the format.  The same thing could be said for decks that will be released throughout the format (example: Fire Fists will be good because of x reason, y reason, z reason). 

Where I start having problems is when people look at an archetype or something, like Iron Chains or something, and go "this deck has potential to be good, if only Konami released more and better cards for it", at which point I go "well, no duh".  Any deck can be good if Konami releases powerful cards for it.  It seems like everyone who says this uses it as an excuse as to why they run what they run. Of course decks will get better if Konami releases more cards that are better for it.

Look, if you like a deck then run it, but don't try to pass it off like people who dismiss it are overlooking something that is important to a format.  Also, people forget to list reasons why something may or may not have "potential".

Et3rnal13 on Ebay

This one is going to be short, but my gawd, have you seen the prices on some of the singles on Ebay for Cosmo Blazer?  Ridiculous.  When your singles are going for double the price of some retail sites preorders of said single, then clearly, people in this game are just being money gougers.  There isn't even a "have it now reason" to fall back on, because the cards won't (or at least not supposed to be) legal until the sets official release date.

Et3rnal13 on Pojo Strategy Section

I use Pojo, I use Pojo a lot, I like the community there, and I'm sure a majority of you frequent Pojo as well.  As people could probably see, I like linking to their guides because they give a compiled list of the cards used in an archetype and it's much easier than looking it up individually.  Now, if people were interested in a really in depth discussion on archetypes, then I'd look for the thread on DGZ.

Here is my problem though.  The people on Pojo do this thing, where immediately once an archetype is announced they make a guide for it.  Generally, with the thread starter making the guide so he can have "dibs" on being the expert opinion on the archetype. 

Normally, I try not to swear on here, but that attitude is bullshit. Testing things early is important, don't get me wrong, I'd rather the guides get made then not, but when people do this, it really doesn't encourage testing.  Why? Because when someone makes it they all ready have listings of how many copies of a card you should run, why you should run it, etc.  The problem is, without any extensive testing of the archetype, how in the world can people say what the right number of certain cards is?  I get that for most cards you can look at it and probably figure out how many you should probably run, but that's not the point, the point is that doing this that early stifles deck growth.  It is helpful to some extent after a while of enough people playing the deck though, because it lets people know what others have had the most success with, but making a guide with numbers of what should be ran a night after the archetype is revealed does not.

Also, playing randoms on DN does not count as extensive testing, you're not going to queue up against random people on DN and test a gauntlet of the competitively viable decks of the format, it just doesn't happen.  You also won't be able to play with people guaranteed to be above a certain skill level that you need them to be.

The attitude feels toxic.  No one person is the ultimate authority on any deck, and I suggest people stop acting like they are.  I have more to say on this, but I'll end it here.

Et3rnal13 on Balance

Balance is relative, especially when judging the competitive scene of a game, and a lot of people forget that.   For example, lets say there are 5 decks that are way better than the other decks in a game, but are relatively the same in power compared to each other.  Could we not say that, due to them being the same in power to each other, that the format was relatively balanced?  Why does every single deck need to be competitive?

Not gonna happen, sorry.

The other problem is there is a facet of people that want the game to go back to being 1-for-1 trades without a lot of the special summoning that happens today.  A lot of the complaints are that everything is far too powerful now compared to those days (which people argue were more skilled).  Yes, decks now are far too imbalanced in power compared to the days of say Fiend and Spellcaster Beatdown, and Goat Control.  I don't see why the game's growth should be a problem as a whole.  Is there powercreep?  That's a whole different article, but I think the game is just finally finding its niche in the card game world. I don't think that the power-creep has increased a ton after the last few years (last format was an example of making things too fast though, no game should be decided on the first turn, the nice thing is that the banlist is able to mitigate these problems). 

We need to face the reality that Konami is merely just falling into the niche of Yu-gi-oh being the popular fast-paced game on the market. 

Et3rnal13 on Side Decking

The majority of the games you play in competition will be post-side.  The Internet does not have nearly enough people talking about this subject though, especially at the depth that it needs to be talked about in.  ARG, TCGplayer, you have spies everywhere I hope, please fix this.  I will also do my part and write a second part to an article I wrote way back when.

Et3rnal13 on not writing 420 Cosmo Blaze It Pt. 3 in time

I'm sorry, my sneak is tomorrow, I haven't wrote it.  I've been extremely busy the past few days.  It will get written at some point though. 

~Et3rnal13 on Stopping.

Yeah, this is the end.

~Et3rnal13