How was Yu Gi Oh played in set 1, at the top level?
>>46388484
By small children and pedophiles - just like Pokemon.
>>46388925
Sure, sure, I hear you, but I mean in terms of actual decks/strategies.
The first set?
3 Pot of Greed, 3 Monster Reborn, 3 Raigeki. A ton of Normal Monsters + Staples + Summoned Skull Beat.
The actual competitive scene didn't start until ~2004
>>46388484
ATTACKING YOUR CASTLES FLOTATION RING WITH CATAPULT TURTLE
>>46389076
Was there any special strategy beyond "play good cards"? How did the competitive scene start?
>>46389086
I mean, you could also play Exodia. The competitive scene started due to shit like Shounen Jump tournaments. Shit got bigger until the Worlds in 2003.
The game was a bit iffy. The main strategies were summoning Summoned Skull or La Jinn/Neo/Battle Ox while stalling with Swords of Revealing Light/Wall of Illusion/Man Eater Bug.
The only real competitor was the Kaiba.dek, which was trying to use Pot of Greed to draw into Lord of D. and Flute of Summoning Dragon, then vomit Blue-Eyes onto the field.
Eventually the staples got limited, but the game was still the same.
The game was pretty bad and incredibly simple.
Then Magic Ruler came out.
>>46389159
Thanks for answering my question. At this point I feel a bit impudent but I'd love to hear what happened next. If there is a written resource on this subject I'll read it instead of bothering you further haha.
>>46389177
So what happened at the start of the game was the basic Yugi and Kaiba starter decks, as well as Legend of Blue-Eyes.
Like above, the game was just beatdown city. After that, Metal Raiders came out and released a bunch of decent staples. Some of these got hit in the banlist, (Limited List at that time), so cards like Sangan, Mirror Force, Witch of the Black Forest and Heavy Storm all got hurt. Most of the monsters were trash at this time.
New beater cards, like 7 Coloured Fish and Dark Elf both made the game slightly faster, Mask of Darkness and Magician of Faith allowed for recycling. Things like Magic Jammer allowed for negation.
It was very similar to the original meta.
Anyway, then Magic Ruler.
The recruiters were kinda meh, but Mystic Tomato allowed for searching for Sangan/Witch.
Cyber Jar was ridiculous, but that was nothing compared to all of the amazing spells in Magic Ruler.
Painful Choice was an omni-searcher. Delinquent Duo, Forceful Sentry and Confiscation allowed you to start grabbing cards from your opponent's hands. Snatch Steal was an equip Change of Heart. MST was released, so there was now single target removal that didn't suck. And Axe of Despair was the best equip.
Meta decks were basically goodstuff. A lot of the cards used were people running things they loved from the show. There was a lot of beatsticking going on. Exodia Stall was also used, since Sangan and Witch allowed for searching. However, things like Delinquent Duo/Forceful/Confiscation hurt it's viability.
Hand Control, so things like White Magical Hat + Axe of Despair featuring Forceful/Confiscation was popular. So was "I'll take your monsters.dek", which used Soul Exchange to steal Summoned Skull and steal monsters with Snatch Steal. Regular beatdown, so Summoned Skull + Mechanical Chaser + Dark Elf were quite popular.
So the game was really simple still. The same beatdown, only now with more power cards.
>>46389326
Thank you very much.
>>46389159
I do wonder, at what point was YGO at its most balanced, disregarding banlists.
>>46389404
If I'm being completely honest, there have been some really balanced formats. Fire vs Water was very balanced. Mermails and Fire Fists were the best decks, but only by a small margin. All sorts of minor decks could compete due to the strength of the staples and the fact that the top decks essentially just summoned big beaters and had removal.
The HAT format was fresh out of a high-powered format, and thus loads of low-powered decks could compete. Hell, even one of the recent formats, the Post-Releaser Nekroz format, was fairly balanced.
Nekroz, BA, Tellars and Dolls were the best, but rogue could do decent. They could actually play again thanks to the banning of Djinn.
I don't know when the game was most balanced, but I guess you could say it was the start. There was only really one deck to play, so it was technically balanced?
