Among Other Things

Posted on Friday, November 20, 2009

So where have I been and why should you care?

Well, I couldn't write any articles partly because of college. College was essentially kickin my ass but I was able to get most of my work done. I've also started to play Magic, in an effort to find a better designed game to play around with (after the statement by Kevin Tewart about the card designers not believing in card advantage, I'm starting to believe that doing so was a good idea). More importantly though I haven't quit, just haven't had time.

So the new format to me is honestly looking pretty good, but I didn't want this first article back to be truely competitive, so I'm going to start with something more on the lighthearted side of things and focus on other formats the game has to offer.

One of the things I've enjoyed about magic is all of the different formats, yu-gi-oh doesn't really have that but yu-gi-oh can do some interesting things with its games types, and I really like the idea of the Pegasus league. The sad thing is is that none of these formats (save for pegasus league) have been supported at all, whether it being the players who are disinterested or just that Konami doesn't and wont provide the support for them.

This article is about other formats, casual or competitive, that i'd like to point out.

Traditional

This is probably the most know format other than Advanced, but it is really rarely played, and it is also undersupported. That is a shame really. Every game at one point or another in its early sets had designed broken cards (Magic had the "power nine", yu-gi-oh had its "staples") One of the most fun things to do is to be able to cut lose and play with the old cards.

Not only would it provide fun memories, but it would also be interesting to see how the metagame in that format has evolved. Sadly I know stores that do traditional formats every onece in a while, but its not often enough to be considered an alternate format, or used enough for their to really be a competitive player base to it. I think players generally don't like the idea because some of those memories are bad, and of course the cards are absurd, that is part of the fun.

Tag Team Dueling

I like the support Upperdeck gave this but Konami just seemed to have dropped it. Along with the Pegasus league, to see this back would feel like a welcome addition to the side event roster. I don't know if they have been doing these again, but they should.

Sealed AKA Sneak Preview

Sealed is basically recieving a number of packs (Sneak Preview it is 5) and building a deck out of those packs. It sounds like a really fun idea, but when you get down to it, the format is really flawed. Yu-gi-oh just doesn't print enough stand alone cards in a set for their to really be a lot of skill in this area. Usually what things devolve into is whoever has the bigger monster.

I feel like Konami has done a better job with the sets, but sealed would still need a bit of a push in set design for the decks to work. My favorite Format was the Raging Battle format. Mainly because I could combo off with various cards like the Ojama's or doing some nifty things with Morphtronics.

One solution if this were to become a dedicfated format would be to use multiple packs from two different sets. An example being using Raging Battle and Crimson Crisis. Still though the sets have so many cards that deal with other sets that the format is basically a luck based format. I think optimally, a competitive format would use 3 different packs 2 of each pack so 6 packs total.

Pack Wars

Essentially, this format is used as a casual way to open packs. You open a pack, not look at the pack, and use that to play a really small game. I don't know how well it would work in yu-gi-oh, so it is difficult to get a pick me up game out of this style of play.

Since yu-gi-oh packs have 9 cards this style of game is incredibly difficult to come up with a way to do. i think you could do something like both players have 2000 life points, and then play a game as normal, it would work better with the reprint set packs.

Exiled Format

Exiled format is one where you can use a 1 off of a banned card. I like this format because it does change some things around and make normal games more interesting. The only side part is that the power boost is given to everybody, so Dark World with Graceful Charity would have been amazing, it would have still lost to Twilight with 1 random CED or BLS.

None the less, I've seen a couple of home tournaments using this style. It is definitely interesting to see what people choose, but I feel like the novelty would wear off.

Old School Lists/ Custom List

Old School banned and restricted lists would be an interesting format. Its another one of those what if things. As a side event it would be interesting, and I think it would also be a good idea to not only see which older Bannerd and Restricted lists were popular, and to see how harmful some cards unrestriced/ semi limited would be if brought back to the metagame. A win for game design and for the players.

Well thats all I can think of for right now, so until next time.

~E.P.B.