The deck that arguably ran this the most effectively was Swordsoul. Although Imperial Order is gone, Swordsoul is still alive and kicking. Here's a decklist, go nuts: bit.ly/3zmlKOg
True Draco & Eldlich are still better as IO user because they can easily remove their own IO. So, when they need spell, they can remove it at that turn. Maybe it's okay for Swordsoul. But it somehow your opponent wipe your board. It will be very difficult to rebuilt the board while IO is still there.
Honestly a fix for Imperial Order would be you can't activate monster effects on the field and keep the pay cost this would help trap decks and allow them to play it while keeping it out of combo decks which is really when floodgates become big problems is when they are seen in combo decks
I think 1 thing that wasnt mentioned properly is that Pre-Errata, you had to only pay on your turn for Imperial Order while after the Errata, you had to pay on both turns. So Pre-Errata Imperial Order could be up double the amount of turns, which was relevant back in the time because games were that much slower
Maybe I'm missing something but didn't original imperial order also negate ALL spells not just ones on the field? Im only 2 min in but he hasn't mentioned that
Well there were the power five during the very early days of YGO but of those some have been powercrept to "OK" And then there's Pot and Delinquent duo
@@Sigismund697 Honestly I'd put Charity above Pot, and Confi and/or Sentry above Duo. And then there's obscene stuff like Painful Choice and Card of Safe Return.
@@Sigismund697 Best I can come up with is this. 1. Graceful Charity 2. Painful Choice 3. Delinquent Duo 4. Imperial Order 5. Number 16: Shock Master 6. Mystic Mine 7. Pot of Greed 8. Confiscation 8. The Forceful Sentry
A way to make IO more “fair” would be to errata it to say “negate the first spell activated each turn” or something along those lines. But at that point, the effect is so different they might as well print it as a new card.
Maybe change the life point maintenance cost to a discard cost of some kind? It probably would need the player to discard more than 1 card at a time to be even be fair.
@@zanpakutoman4225 That's the hardest part of balancing IO, making it too garbo, or still way too abusable. Though imagine a deck where you still negate spells, but discard 2 cards with graveyard effects. Now you're popping stuff, or bouncing/negating, maybe even searching, while also disabling their spells lol.
A lot of decks don't care about that. Can even get cards that give you advantage when discarded. Just make it a trap version of magicians right hand and call it a day lol
I still remember a remote duel YCS where a guy playing Beetrooper lost to a well timed Imperial Order, but the thing is, the guy only played like 4 spells in the entire deck, which goes to show how powerful locking someone out of spells can be
I'd say that one way that I can think to balance this card would be like "When this card is activated your opponent can discard 1/2 cards to negate and destroy it" which means built in counterplay to the card, and it also allows for more interesting gameplay as one would have to keep in mind how many cards they have in hand and if they need to be able to respond to Imperial order
Tbh, i would've expected penalty in line "discard random card for each turn passed" instead. So when you use it, your hand begins to burn and it won't stop until it's empty.
@@morgothable Hmmm... yeah, you'r right. From Magic standpoint it would've been tougher penalty. Maybe for each card played discard another as long as this is on field? That will make you not being able to do combo without blocked type
@@DimkaTsv that's basically what it does now. And in a way could be even a stronger card as you could set yourself so imperial order only stays 1 turn on field, your opponents turn. It's too easy to put your hand down to 1 or 0 cards and still set a board nowadays
A perhaps usable version idea: Continuous trap card: Negate all spell effects on the field. Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you lose 1000LP (this is not optional). Either player may discard two cards at any time to destroy this face-up card on the field.
I think this card is actually most similar to Magic 'lock pieces' in prison decks. They're decks designed around invalidating most of an opponent's cards. Like Moat "Non-flying creatures can't attack", Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, Trinisphere, Diving Top + Counterbalance. They're pretty unpopular, but the big thing that stops them being broken is it's much slower in Magic to set-up a lock.
The quintessential lock piece is winter orb. And it was fairly opressive to the point where it was present in the world champion decks for the first 4 years of tournaments.
My balancing idea would be to have the live point cost apply for every spell negated and being non optional. Like with other suggestions it essentially becomes a different card at that point though.
@@jacktheripperVII it could be a bigger cost, but honestly even 3000 life points per spell (aka two spells before you run out) would be really powerful since it would make your opponent need to go -2 before they can activate their board breaker (if they even HAVE 2 other spells in hand)
@@jacktheripperVII huh?? it would *matter*, it would mean your opponent can play two spells to out your imperial order before playing their board breaker, and thats not affected by game speed but i was saying it would still be too strong anyway, because your opponent would have to go -2 before doing anything edit: although, leaving you at 2k means youre at risk of being OTKd without your opponent needing to out your board (e.g. maybe they hit a 3k attack monster into your attack position 1k attack monster), so maybe that would be risky enough to be a good downside? it still probably wouldnt work though, since you can just summon your weak monsters in defense, and your opponent running a burn card like gustav max isnt that common, and them getting anything to get rid of your last 2k is a lot harder when they lose two spells from their hand
This is probably a stupid question, but can someone explain the whole “this is not optional” effect to me? The exact wording on the errata is “during your standby phase you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional) OR this card is destroyed.” The “or this card is destroyed” bit is what throws me off. Does the errata effect mean I have to pay 700 LP each turn until either it gets destroyed by another card effect or until the card deals enough damage to me over multiple turns to kill me? Or is the errata effect essentially saying you must pay 700 LP for the card to stay active, so you can theoretically choose to stop paying the cost, but then IO gets destroyed (or is that how the pre-errata effect worked)?
I remember playing this card as a middle schooler right after Pharaoh's Servant dropped and having multiple people straight up refuse to believe that the pay 700 was optional at that point lmao
Thinking about Magic cards that lock out entire types - Archon of Valor's Reach is a huge beater that locks out a non-creature card type that you get to choose on resolution (your opponent does not know what it will lock them out of while it's on the stack), but the 6 mana casting cost makes is slower in the same way discussed here. Even then, it sees play in Legacy Elves in a way that mirrors the Swordsoul deck you mention - turn off the instant speed interaction or board wipes as necessary to wrap up the game. I think it's also interesting how the increased number of card types in Magic mean that even when effects like this do show up, the pool of cards they hit is smaller than their counterparts in Yugioh.
The only way I could think of maybe making this able to come back is something along the lines of its only a single spell per turn maybe? Or with each negated spell you are giving a worse and worse burn effect. 1st spell negated is 1k, 2nd spell 3k, etc etc something like that even then it's still insane & the fact that it says ALL spells is what makes this card so strong.
This is my fun little version of Imperial Order :) "Imperial Order", Trap, Continuous. Negate all Spell effects on the field. Your opponent's Monster and Trap card effects cannot be negated. Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional), or Banish this card. Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must roll a die. If the result is a 1, Destroy this card. Once per turn, during the Standby or End Phase, your opponent can Draw any 1 card from their deck. If it's a Spell card, they gain 4000 LP. When this card is removed from the field, you lose the duel.
You could also draw inspiration from the original "Mystic Mine" Swords of Revealing Light, and add a timer to it. Make it so it destroys itself after 3(?) turns, that way it can be used as a way to slow the game down a bit, allowing you to try to get resources to push for game, which imo is a healthy-ish way of using the card, as opposed to playing it and asking: have an out? otherwise, game 2?
@@ogeid772 or also make it destroy itself if you control no monster. Which mean you can still blank out for 1 turn to gather resources and opponent on their turn can try to outplay by linking off their monster or do tribute summon instead of 7 turns draw pass.
There arent a lot of cards that can target spell/traps that dont already destroy those spells and traps. Also the ones that can are stuff like Siegfried or HRDA Abyss which negate the target thus preventing this from triggering and they are also monsters so they can't activate their effects. Reminder that Mystic Mine does not negate effects but prevent them from being activated so you would still have to draw a spell that can target Mine which narrows it down to basic S/T removal that has long become suboptimal to run.
@@luminous3558 thing is, you would add a backrow of negates to defend mine from spellcards. So that wouldn't work anymore because even if it is negated it still targeted and mine will destroy itself.
Idea for imperial order errata/rebalance: Sacrifice a spell/trap for activation. Then for each turn (including the turn it was activated) where it has been activated, at the beginning of the turn, sacrifice n+1 more spell/trap. So you activate it on your opponents turn, you have sac a card to keep it there. Then at the start of your turn, you have to sac two. In trying to implement what's called "cumulative upkeep" from MTG here, with an additional startup cost. The theory is this: Since card advantage is king in ygo, saccing each turn is detrimental. If this is the only card you've put down, it sacrifices itself. If you have two, you get to use this on your opponent's turn, and then it goes away because you can't sac two to keep it around. Etc. With a loss in resources, filling your deck with "feeder" spell/traps makes it harder to use. Too hard?
Too hard? Not really, no. Remember Yugioh matches basically only lasts 3-4 turns. (one or two turns each) Your opponent would've probably already won before they had to discard the additional two cards; This card only needs to be on the field for one turn to massively disrupt the opponents play.
Adding harsher restrictions to the card would make it less powerful, but just as sacky and frustrating. An interesting design space is adding a cost to be able to play spells, but it would be an entirely different card at that point. (Spell cards can only be activated by paying 2000 LP/discarding 1 card from your hand at random). I went with soft costs, but you could be harsher as giving the choice to your opponent and still letting him resolve spells makes the card much less powerful.
I think it needs a harsh activation cost (something that gets felt by the user, like banishing a monster you control face down) and a reasonably harsh upkeep cost that if you don't pay still denies you using spells for that turn
The Yu-Gi-Oh design space seems really limited by not having a good resource requirement that can be built up. Anything you can do on turn 10, you can already do on turn 2. Massive game-changing effects should take a bit of set-up or you end up with a "you don't get to play today" card coming out of nowhere with little to no opportunity to respond. Also, a meta that lasts 2-3 turns means that there is a razor thin margin between unplayable and OP.
I actually wonder if you could give this card the sekkas light treatment. Where you can only activate it if you have no spell cards in your graveyard, and if you do activate it, you cannot activate spell cards of your own for the rest of the duel. And then keep the maintenance cost. Not a lot of decks have a way to banish spells from their graveyard, especially now that snow is gone. Route to fix it.
@@DarkCT I think I'd be kind of cool too because it would limit deck construction. Even a lot of your trap decks, you play spells that are your search power or your draw power. So you're trading that power away for something like imperial order. I don't think I would go quite as far as sekkas light did to say that you can't activate spells or traps for the rest of the duel, but I definitely think you could get away with saying no spells for the rest of the duel
@@vergilrules1616 personally in my own version i do see how far i can go without Magics. traptrix just got announced to be gaining magics and frankly after spending so many years cutting teeth against secret villages and opposing Io's, when a deck i work with gets new magics i just don't feel it. my current paleo pet deck doesn't run any at all, and my current labrynth only runs the field magic. A lot of the cards i use get cut just because a meta deck makes them relevant, and in IO's case because the game state is so fast in most modern games.
@@DarkCT And that further reinforces a deck building choice. You can either choose to play spells, or you can choose to play IO. I think it's a really good balance actually
@@vergilrules1616 agreed. in some of my set ups id play IO directly, even given that option. it's something to be said we don't have more cards that have such harsh restrictions.
Looking a bit through MTG rules, the closest I could translate the card to an MTG card would be something along the lines of it being an Artifact, and having the effect to Counter all Sorceries. And the non-optional upkeep equivalent would be about 2 life per turn, out of the starting 20.
I think Thunder Dragon Collossus would be an interesting card to discuss with an MTG player. I wonder if it would see play in MTG, I don't think they have much searching but the protection effect, fairly big body and the generic summoning condition might still make it very strong over there?
Actually, depending on the format, an Anti-searching effect on T1 would be problematic because Fetchlands dominate every format they are legal in. If it came down t2, then the effect would be fair because 1 Mana allows people to cast an answer. (Leonin Arbiter exists, and is good but not broken.) However, the generic summoning condition would prove problematic, as would having the extra deck as a whole. While you can go fast in MTG, that comes at a tradeoff for consistency, because you have to draw both the fast mana, and something to do with it.
@@davidmitchell2421 Theoretically, yes. However, companion broke magic so hard that they actually errata'd the entire mechanic. (Something unprecedented in MTG history). Out of the 10 companions, 5 of them broke magic (Lurrus, Lutri, Zirda, Gyruda & Yorion). 2 were free-rolled in decks that shouldn't be playing them (Kaheera and Jegantha), while 3 ended up at a correct level. (Umori, Obosh, Keruga) Companions are a good example of why an extra deck would break MTG.
Lurrus is especially notable as the first card to ever be banned from Vintage for its power level iirc. Vintage. The format whose selling point is the legality of literally everything banned a card for being too strong.
@@simonteesdale9752 I don't think it would by just existing, but it would require specific resources to be played from the library, similar to Polymerization. As long as you control access to a separate resource from the library it wouldn't be inherently broken.
In Magic, there is a mechanic called Hexproof (and an older variant called shroud), where a card with it can't be targeted by spells or abilities your opponent control. Magic has a couple of cards that come in and give everything Hexproof. A recent one called Shalai, Voice of Plenty gives the controller and all OTHER creatures Hexproof. I think something similar could be implemented for Imperial Order where it negates all spell effects that aren't targeting it. So something like Lightning Storm that hits all traps wouldn't work, but Twin Twisters or Cosmic Cyclone would allow people to get rid of it. I think this strikes a nice balance of still being very powerful, but not completely unbeatable.
While IO may be the only card to be banned for two different effects, Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest in the OCG join it in cards that got banned after erratas. For the first couple years of their existence, they didn't have to be on the field for their floating effects to trigger, and while they were never banned for this, it does mean that when they eventually were banned (pre-worldwide errata), it was the OCG-errata'd/TCG versions.
Sanwitch was really good back then as not only did you get a decently strong monster but you would trigger both sangan and witch of the black forest effects to let you search out 2 monsters from your deck. You could then defuse Sanwitch to get sangan and witch of the black forest back so you can use their effects again. I used that strategy to get first turn exodia wins back in oid yugioh.
The best way to make imperial order more fair wile still being viable would be that it only negates spells in the main phase 1. This will allow your opponent counter play by going to the main phase 2.
That still (usually) buys you an entire turn for free against almost every deck. The counterbalance of floodgates is supposed to be that they're specific, and IO breaks that by design I just don't think it should exist.
12:30 Carl brings up a good point. Magic has a mana system to limit cards like this on the first turn. Yu-Gi-Oh! has monster sacrifices. Make it "cost" two monsters when first activated (or even three {heck, even five}). You could require the health point cost as well on the standby phase. Maybe even switch it over to a monster cost per turn. It would self counter cards like Scapegoat, though the synergy with Scapegoat (or any other card effects that summon tokens/monsters) could be neat if played before Imperial Order. While the running cost while active is still nice to have, Adam does mention that Yu-Gi-Oh! is more or less "won" in one turn. I haven't played in over 15 years, but it was mostly like that back then too. I don't know if the cost offset (requiring a turn or two to get the requisite monsters on the field) would nerf the card enough on its own. Anyways, thanks for the video. keep on being awesome.
The only thing I can think of would be if it said “you cannot activate other cards or effects the turn this card is flipped face up.” So you can use it as a spell-floodgate for the turn still but you wouldn’t be able to use your turn 1 board to stop your opponent.
Similar to Chalice of the Void, Iona is another good MTG card to talk about. In a commander game, you can completely shut out everyone from playing a color.
@@fritothedemon6647 I thought of Iona as well, but I think the fact it costs so much mana takes it out of the easily playable category. Also, most decks will still have a way to get rid of it, since it only blocks one color.
@@rajamicitrenti1374 That was in the back of my mind as well. However, it is banned in commander because it's being fun if they get it out. Also, commander is the place where 8 drops actually see play. There's also reanimator shenanigans that can happen.
@@Ummidontknow14 Don't forget that painter's servant exists. Only one of them can exist in commander at the same time. If both were unbanned it would be an instant win.
Since the card itself has no trigger, it was highly versatile. In the old days, if you didn't activate on your opponent's turn, you'd activate on your own standby phase to negate the discard effect of Mirage of Nightmare. Those were the days... In addition to making the maintenance cost mandatory, the errata made it so it had to be paid during BOTH players' standby phases, effectively doubling the cost. One thing to be done which can prevent these first turn shut downs would be to include a caveat that it cannot be activated until after the third turn of the game. So, even if turn 1 player has it in their opening hand, and sets it turn 1, turn 2 player gets at least their first turn to activate spells and prepare a defense. 🤷♂
7:35 - "Is it easy to tutor up" Yes. Yes it was. All you needed to do was Link climb into Curious the Lightsworn Dominion, use his effect to dump it from deck to grave, then link Curious away with 1 other monster to make Knightmare Gryphon and have that Imperial Order set to your field. It was INSANELY easy. 9:04 - "If you have exactly 700 life point you pay and you lose" That's not correct. In the TCG you cannot be forced to pay an amount of LP that would cause you to lose the game and Imperial Order would instead explode. However, in the OCG in Japan/Asia you ARE forced to pay 700 if you are exactly at 700, if you're UNDER 700 it simply explodes.
You also didn't mentioned that back then Imperial Order only needed to be paid on your standby phase. The errata changed it to be paid on both standby phases.
We still have quite alot of Imperial Orders in the game, but none of those are banned. Perhaps looking at those will give hints on how to balance it. Hidden Village of the Spellcasters requires you to control a spellcaster in order to apply. Spellbreaker of the Ice Barrier is tied to one of the worst archetypes. Naturia Beast or Exterio have hard summoning requirements. White Howling requires you to use water monsters and have your opponents spell in GY.
I'd say Anti-Spell Fragrance is basically what a balanced Imperial Order would be - a broad-scope continuous trap that prevents the use of spells, balanced by only delaying them rather than completely shutting them down.
@@yasharthpandey6317 There's no way you actually think Anti-Spell Fragrance isn't problematic. The only functional difference between it and IO is that you have to flip it preemptively in DP. Yeah they can activate their spells the next turn, but they aren't getting a next turn if they can't break your board without their spells (oh and go figure, most cards that help break boards are spells).
Anti spell is still a banworthy card due to how impactful shutting off spells for even just 1 turn is. Anti spell is IO for all intents and purposes. If you face a decent board backed by either you just straight up lose the game. The only difference is that IO is a chainable negate while Anti spell needs to be preemptively used and the opponent can chain droplet. We are currently in a tier 0 monsterbased format though so right now its probably fine since spells are the last thing you have to worry about.
10:58 I'd say 'City in a Bottle' is the closest Magic card in terms of design (a card that stays on board and prevents a certain type of card to be played). But Magic has a ton of "Hosers" (cards that hard counter a specific thing). 'Blood Moon' is a notorious example that sees a bunch of play.
Apart from adding a restriction making the card near useless (this card can only be activated at the start of your Main Phase 1) there is no good way to balance this card nowadays. Its funny that this came out at a time when negating spells took a discard (magic jammer) or was unreliable (magic drain). I guess the original thought was it was balanced by preventing you from using staple spells like pot of greed, monster reborn, or raigeki, but then they made it optional to keep up, meaning you could leave it up when you were ahead, but get rid of it if your opponent got ahead and you needed your comeback cards. Releasing it with an errata was even stupider since they should know a lot better by now.
Just a thought, could you change IO so the cost was paid every time a spell was negated and then fiddle with the cost to balance it so if your opponent has a bunch of spells they could OTK you?
The weirdest thing to me is that when they added the "not optional" clause, is that they didn't just remove the "or the card is destroyed" at the same time. If the purpose is to basically force you to remove it or make it stay until it drains you. Then what purpose is there in having a destroy clause on the card itself? Makes the text needlessly more confusing.
Something interesting is to give it a punishing cost like whenever the activation of card or card effects are negated, you banish cards face down from your extra deck. Or for each card effects negated by this card you receive 2k damage at the end of the turn
I feel like maybe one way to errata the card would be to make its resource cost relate to cards rather than life points. In that regards, I have two ideas: 1. When a spell effect is activated: you must discard 1 card or this card is destroyed; negate the spell effect. 2. When this card is activated: discard any number of cards, and add that many tokens to this card. When a spell effect is activated: remove 1 token from this card or this card is destroyed; negate the spell effect. The idea for both of these suggestions is to associate a meaningful cost for each negation made, rather than just having an inconsequential cost for each turn the card is active. That way, the opponent is able to induce at least some negative effect while they're blocked, and also the person who placed the card is also incentivized to not let the card remain in place for too long. And if sending cards to the GY is not consequential enough cost, then we could make it so that cards get banished, or facedown banished.
I think the closest card to Imperial Order is Counterbalance. Its really a 2 card combo of Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, but that combination can completely lock an opponent out of the game.
7:38 Actually, a deck called Scrap Dinosaur used to be able to end on Imperial Order almost every turn. A card called Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion can send it from Deck to GY, and then you can Set it from the GY using Knightmare Gryphon. Man, I miss Scrap Dino and Dragon Link.
You could add a new conditions to the trap that says something like "Activate this trap only if the opponent controls X or more spells," where X is some number appropriate to YGO. -an MTG player
Oh this is funny as it would make it from the best to one of the quite useless cards in an instant :D The thing is: You don't control Spells most of the time as the only ways Spells stay (as public knowledge) on the field is field spells and permanent spells. So when X is more than one it wouldn't even be situational anymore lol
@@FaceD0wnDagon Well, depends on format I guess - If there is something like Tri Brigade or any other Deck with a field spell or a perm Spell you know they bring out in first turn, then maybe. But then again it would be too easy to out it as you only have to play your normal spells first and afterwards your field/perm spell. There are way better sideboard options I guess than errataed IO with the restriction that there must be 2 open spells to activate it
@Luna, die mit der Windseele it would've been played back when sky striker was the best deck probably, also would likely see siding if mystic mine burn decks got too good
I suppose you could re-make IO to either have a limited turn counter like swords of revealing light, or force you to place x number of cards onto the bottom of your deck. The easiest I could see is just remaking the card into a counter trap instead, or limiting the number of cards it can stop. There's also the option of making you return a card to your deck or banishing for cost for each spell card you want to stop.
As pointed out the turn amount doesn’t matter as even one turn is too good. The way to fix it is maybe make it like Future Fusion in that there’s a delay in effect but as also pointed out such a thing would make it unusable (as is the case for Future Fusion)
You would have to add an additional restriction to the card like "the controller of this card cannot conduct their battle phase or cannot add cards from deck to hand" or something else like that
You fix mystic mine by turning it into the magic card Ensnaring Bridge which reads "Creatures with power greater than the number of cards in your hand can't attack." For yu-gi-oh, change the restriction from creature power to number of creatures. So if you have 1 card in hand, 1 creature your opponent controls can attack and etc. Ensnaring Bridge is a very powerful card, but the huge downside of having no cards in hand is a big deal that your entire deck has to be built around and would be in yu-gi-oh as well especially for things like hand traps. But not impossible to build around in the spirit of the game. That restriction would actually target the decks which want to use it in a serious way rather than the effect just being free.
How could you not at least mention Teferi Time Raveler. He eliminated your opps instants. He removed and entire aspect of Magic, instant timed responses.
So here's what I'm thinking: Imperial Order Normal Trap Negate all spell effects on the field for the next 2 turns. This card can only be played during your standby phase. This way, it's still strong but it can't be a flip up during your opponents turn and just straight win the game card. Probably not gonna be run at all given that average duel time is like, 3 turns but still.
A fair errata for IO would be "pay 8 000 lp to activate this card, on each standby phase pay 10 000 lp, if you can't pay as much as you can" aka if you wanted to play this bs card you shouldn't have any possibility of winning
The only errata to IO I can think of would be something along the lines of Vanity's Emptiness' effect, or perhaps something like "If you control a face-up monster, destroy this card. This card cannot be activated while you control a face-up monster. For the rest of the turn after this face-up card is destroyed, the controller of this card cannot activate spell cards or effects." To the text. This would prevent it from being used to a degree, but the amount of people that would still use it, maybe set it turn one, activate it on opponents turn 2 as a floodgate, then immediately go into turn 3 to set up their board is still substantial.
"This card can only be activated at the start of your main phase 1" It would mean you could only activate it on your second turn, and would have to suffer through the effect as well.
Pay half your HP for activating it and 1000hp for each opponent effect negated this way. You are still giving your opponent a way to defeat you somehow.
I have an interesting errata for it. Imperial Order: Declare a name of yugioh card in your deck. Once declared, Negate the activation and effects of all Spells on the field. At the start of your Standby Phase, (this is not optional) banish a copy of the declared card from the deck, or destroy this card.
Here is my idea to balance Imperial Order: Negate all Spell effects on the field. *When a Spell Card is activated, you take 700 damage.* Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional), or this card is destroyed. *When this card is destroyed, you take damage equal to the number of spell cards in your opponent’s GY x1000.* The numbers on the damage may have to be adjusted, but the idea is that the if used recklessly the opponent can burn you for game. Ways to tune this more is to up the damage on spell activation such as *When a Spell Card is activated, halve your LP.* and you can also add *Your opponent can activate Trap Cards on the turn they are Set* to punish blind activation on against trap decks and easy answers via sideboard trap speed removal.
There was a widely-hated floodgate card not too long ago in the MTG meta very similar to Imperial Order (Teferi the Time Raveler). While it didn't completely disable enemy Spell Cards, it was an enemy-only disable Spells and Traps during each of your own turns until it got destroyed. (It did other busted stuff on top of that.) It eventually got banned, and I think it got banned in the legacy format too. Just all-around banned everywhere, and MTG rarely bans cards (although it's been more frequent in recent years). And also MTG has no limited list so you would have 4 copies in a 60 card deck.
My idea would be to change it to "When this card is activated and during every standby phase you must pay half your life total". Would introduce more risk/reward into the card with hopefully still keeping it viable.
One way to errata IO is to add an additional mandatory tribute or discard cost during your opponent's standby phase. This balances the card because the player with IO in the field is not increasing the cards in their hand on their draw phase. A different way to errata IO is in addition to its current life point cost the player with IO on field has to also mandatory skip their draw phase while IO is on the field.
Still too good unless the cost is too steep. You still win on your next turn after paying the cost once, twice max, and skipping draw phases hardly matters when you already have everything you need to play. It would at most end up in all those decks that set full boards up and still have 5 cards in hand. Even banishing a card face-down might not be enough.
MTG player here: It'd be really interesting to see YGO players opinions on Stax pieces or hatebears. (Although because they often tie into the resource system, they might be hard to translate). Example: Chalice of the void (X)(X) - Artifact Chalice of the void enters with X charge counters on it. Whenever a player casts a spell with Mana Value X, counter that spell. YGO translation: Chalice of the void - continuous spell. When you play chalice of the void, sacrifice any number of monsters. Put a number of counters on chalice of the void equal to half the total combined levels, ranks and link ratings of the sacrificed monsters. Whenever a player plays a monster with a level, rank or link rating equal to the number of counters on chalice of the void, negate that monster's effects and destroy it.
Hmm... It's definitely a strange card. I wouldn’t call it unusable, but the fact it shuts down certain levels at a high cost could become a really sacky card. Like lvl 4 spam decks being shut down entirely. Yugioh has a ton of floodgates and most of them are frustrating to play against. Add in a floodgate that can stop an entire level of monster that you can choose could be theoretically brutal. The thing is most decks break floodgates one of two ways, a handful of board clearing spells or monster effects. I won’t say that it's op or weak, just that it's not a future proofed card. Like if you shut down 4s (levels, ranks, link ratings) that's decimating to a lot of decks. Worse yet, you can adapt the level to crush whatever rank/link/level you are facing. Decks like sky strikers would be crippled by turning off their link monsters, and as long as you know the key bottlenecks... Yeah the card could be game ending/warping.
Imperial Order Fix: (Same effect as now), but add "except for spells which target 'Imperial Order'". That way it can still be used to shut down spells, but it can't protect itself from removal. Maybe add a condition where the owner of IO can't target it with his own spells too.
Long time Yu-Gi-Oh player here, and for my opinion on Imperial Order I believe it should be a 3 or none type of card. Mostly people were upset about being sacked than the card itself it feels like. If you actually have 3 you'd have to put more main deck outs which makes the game interactive imo. The main problem Card Games have is not hitting direct hits I.E Urza for magic and Yu-Gi-Oh take your pick Firewall dragon was such a menace forEVER, but each banlist added yet another card to pay for it's sins. Like as soon as imperial order got unbanned Sky Striker started tearing up the scene. Which sure anti-spell "hurts" them it just wasn't anywhere enough. We each have our own views, but I'm just giving mine as a since the beginning player. I quit for awhile during Bujin H.A.T format, and never during B.A, Shaddoll, Zoodiac format so I can't say the whole time.
you could make it either only activatable on your own turn, or only apply to the player who is currently in turn, ie. for the first example it can be used as a spell defense to protect from negates but not to shut down your opponent on their turn, or in the second version, it can be used on your opponents turn, and it negates, but you now have to deal with not having no spells on your turn.
My first thought of a magic analogue was Collector Ouphe. It reads, "activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated". This means all mana rocks are useless, which in high-powered formats, and especially against artifact-based decks, is brutal. Also, Humility converts all creatures into vanilla 1/1s. It's not legal in most formats, but if you want to really piss off your commander table, you can throw that down. It basically entirely shuts down any creature-based strategy, which is really the vast majority of decks. Control and spellslinger wouldn't really care I suppose. I could go on, there's some pretty evil magic cards. But there's so many formats and so many cards that most of the time they don't end up being a huge issue.
I think the only way to deal with Imperial Order is to require it be activated in your turn, probably either your Standby Phase (and thus pay the cost the same turn it is activated) or start of Main Phase 1 (so you can't use Spells that turn). That would slow the card down so much that people would likely stop playing it, but it might make sense as a Side Deck card if there is a slower Spell-focused deck to deal with (e.g. Mystic Mine decks).
Perfect idea. It could say "Negate all Normal Spells" instead. That way, the opponent can destroy it with staple backrow removal Quick Play Spells like Twin Twister.
2 possible fixes: 1) Remove the lifepoint cost, and instead just simply make you lose during the second Standby Phase after activation, without the ability to respond or negate the effect (so you must win on your next turn after activation) 2) Keep the lifepoint cost, but also make it negate all of your monster effects in ANY zone, and halve all damage you do. The first kills any deck that can't reliably win the turn behind it (Eldlich and stall decks) the other kills any deck's ability of winning on the turn after activation
With regard to the "cost" angle which came up in discussion, that's not a bad way to get around it... "The turn player can discard 1 Spell card. If they do, this card's effects are negated until the next Standby Phase." Means that a player can burn an otherwise useless spell to gain access to all their other spells, and potentially even grab that spell back from the grave on the same turn. Idk, just an idea.
An interesting thought here is that in 2019 though, IO had a chance to be a completely dead card cause of a certain spell being at 3. Still unsure why Sekka's Light got limited with how much it restricted deckbuilding. EDIT: Also forgot that red reboot was at 3 also, as well as Pankratops. Looking back, IO had more reliable outs than when it got banned, mainly cause said reliable outs got hit a lot.
Because it's Pot of Greed for decks that didn't care about having spells in them. Which is a fair few, considering how monster effect-heavy the game is now. Arguably, there are fewer such decks than there are decks that don't care about the banish cost of the other Pot cards that let you go +1, but, at least PoD is semi-limited. PoE doesn't see play because of how few decks there are out there that are still good without half their extra deck, I guess, but IMO its cost is less harsh than PoD's so I really wonder why it's not semi-limited too.
Whoever runs this page : Tell the dude on the left, as a fellow sweaty under cameras guy he should never wear a hoodie. He looks nervous and hot, which can be brought down visually by just being a little cooler. TAKE OFF THE HOODIE BRO! Nice vid, love the idea.
One potential fix would to be to replace or supplement the life point with another cost that forces the player using it to tribute somewhere around two-three(unsure which would be the sweet spot here) monsters in order to activate it initially. Combo decks would lose a bit of their presence during their opponent's turn, and much slower control decks end up having to figure out how to shill out those kinds of resources without it feeling painful.
the way I would describe Imperial Order as a lapsed MTG fan is... it's like if your favorite Stax piece had flash. Like, imagine if Stasis had Flash. Spell cards are Yugioh's Instants, Sorceries, and in a way, enchantments. they are your non-monster proactive plays in Yugioh. Traps are a bit like the MTG mechanic fortell, except they're susceptible to removal, but... at the time of imperial Order's printing, practically every bit of removal worth playing was on a spell or was... I dunno, Dust Tornado. Hosing spells, and then having the option to not pay the Life Points to get your crack at your own spells was like time walking someone. Brutal, BRUTAL shit.
This would make a good magic card. There's plenty of effects that hose certain card types, we just have 6-7 common card types. Artifacts tend to get the most hate, every color has some way that they interact with artifacts. In powerful formats people play artifact hate like "activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated". There are creatures that prevent your opponents from casting spells, ways to stop gameplay by locking the board and being the only player who can act. Fun stuff
I always like converting the text to another card game's style. Maybe if this was an enchantment that said "Players can't cast noncreature spells. At the beginning of your upkeep, pay 7 life. If you can't, destroy this enchantment"
One way I think IO could potentially be a bit more balanced is if the opponent gets the option to discard a card (perhaps a spell) to negate the activation (similar to Magic Drain). IO still functions as normal, but it’s ultimately the opponent who chooses whether or not they want to save their spells by discarding a card or just play through it, which adds the risk to the user of IO in knowing that their negate may not even work. This way, IO can still be an imposing card, only now it’s not so instant win
Imperial Order Errata Idea: If you control no cards, you can activate this card from your hand. You can only activate this card at the start of your Main Phase 1. Negate all spell effects on the field. Every time a spell card is activated, you take 1000 damage. During the end phase, if you did not activate 2 or more spell cards, banish this card-facedown.
I think this might as well be a new card, but what if you had to discard a card each time to negate a spell, again not optional and destroyed if can't be done. It definitely brings it down but could be too much but I think 1 card per turn would be not enough as you could hold a single card use on their turn pay your card then it would destroy itself for your turn and you could have your good spell card set ready for this turn
When it comes to banning an archetype in magic it depends on what you mean. There is a 9 cost gargoyle that counters the first non creature spell each turn. there are a couple of different spirits that limit the number spells each player can cast to 1. There are a number of cards that completely negate monster attacks, something like omen machine disables peoples ability to draw. there are cards that turn instances into sorceries, cards that make your whole field and you untargetable, there are cards that make enchantments unplayable, cards that make artifacts unplayable, cards that add a cost to all cards of a type, card combos that make land unplayable and destroy all land (looking at you mycosynth lattuce + march of the machines), and many others, the balance factor usually being that they cost 4+ mana meaning the earliest a player will likely play one is second turn rotation or they will end up comitting 4+ cards to locking a portion of the field on turn 1.
It's not an imperial order errata but what could be a fun and good replacement that i have on my mind atm it's called Indecisive ruler [Trap ♾️] Once per turn (not optional)sent 2 random normal monster,or 1 random spell,or 1 random trap from your deck to the gy. (The cards that's been sent to gy cannot activate their effect this turn)if not destroy this card Then you can sacrifice 1000 lp to roll a dice 1-2 destroy all spells on the field 3-4 destroy all trap on the field (except this card) 5-6 this card will be destroyed if the opponent have more facedown spell/trap than you you can activate this card from the grave /hand immediately, if the cards is activated this way double the lp cost and banish this card facedown at the end of the turn You can only activate one "indecisive ruller" per turn
I think the best bet for Errta-ing it is to change to a different typeof maintenance cost. Not life points. Maybe send a card from hand to grave. Or shuffle back a face down card from spell/trap zone or something. Card advantage is the primary resource of the game, so make it cost in that way.
I would say the closest thing to this in magic would be Linvala that says opponents creatures cant activate effects. Notably its one of only two or three cards that DONT give exception to mana generating abilties. Even stronger would be Iona, an angel that prevented opponents from playing a chosen color, potentially ruining an entire deck or making a multicolor deck pitifully handicapped. there was also the infamous mycosynth lattice and Karn combo, where lattice made every card an artifact and Karn said your opponents artifacts (all their cards now) cant activate any abilities.
There are combos that do similar effects in magic, but you need more setup. Microsynth lattice turns all permanents into artifacts and March of the Machines turns all non-creature artifacts into X/X artifact creatures with X=their converted mana cost. Land cards, the most common source of mana, have a cost of 0, so they automatically die. Both of these cards stay in play indefinitely, so if either player tries to play a land, it will immediately die. There are other sources of mana, such as certain artifacts. I had a teacher who ran this combo and his deck would develop these mana-producing artifacts before permanently wiping out lands. Of course you need to draw and pay for these card, which leaves you open to damage and disruption. Yu-Gi-Oh seems to have a more limited design space because it doesn't have a good resource building mechanic. Casual Yu-Gi-Oh had a bit of a resource with only allowing one normal/tribute summon and needing to sacrifice creatures to get more powerful ones, but there is no such limit on spell, traps, and special summons. Even if you can't find a way to get around tribute summoning a creature, you can probably special summon a few sacrifices with a spell.
I've designed 2 card games, none of which I've released because I'm a poor slacker. My errata would be to keep the text as is post-errata, and add "you must choose one of the following effects: your monsters have their abilities negated OR you cannot activate cards in your spell/trap zone until this card leaves the field. Doing this is a condition of activating this card."
The deck that arguably ran this the most effectively was Swordsoul. Although Imperial Order is gone, Swordsoul is still alive and kicking.
Here's a decklist, go nuts:
bit.ly/3zmlKOg
True Draco & Eldlich are still better as IO user because they can easily remove their own IO. So, when they need spell, they can remove it at that turn. Maybe it's okay for Swordsoul. But it somehow your opponent wipe your board. It will be very difficult to rebuilt the board while IO is still there.
Honestly a fix for Imperial Order would be you can't activate monster effects on the field and keep the pay cost this would help trap decks and allow them to play it while keeping it out of combo decks which is really when floodgates become big problems is when they are seen in combo decks
To a certain definition of "alive and kicking" considering the power creep of the game is to render a deck relevant for only 6 months.
You should def do the dragon rulers, linkross, or agrapain
Swordsoul is more so sinking than swimming. New ishizu cards gonna go crazy
I think 1 thing that wasnt mentioned properly is that Pre-Errata, you had to only pay on your turn for Imperial Order while after the Errata, you had to pay on both turns.
So Pre-Errata Imperial Order could be up double the amount of turns, which was relevant back in the time because games were that much slower
That I actually didn't know!
- Adam
Maybe I'm missing something but didn't original imperial order also negate ALL spells not just ones on the field? Im only 2 min in but he hasn't mentioned that
@@CardmarketYGO yeah you didn't mention that pre errata negates ALL spell effects, including spell effects in the GY
And the cost ain't mandatory, you can choose NOT to pay. It's a dumb card pre-errata really.
Cristopher They did mention that part in the vid
When talking about Yugioh's version of MTG's 'Power 9', pre-errata Imperial Order should certainly be part of that. Nuts card, even after the errata.
Well there were the power five during the very early days of YGO but of those some have been powercrept to "OK"
And then there's Pot and Delinquent duo
@@Sigismund697 Honestly I'd put Charity above Pot, and Confi and/or Sentry above Duo. And then there's obscene stuff like Painful Choice and Card of Safe Return.
@@Sigismund697 Best I can come up with is this.
1. Graceful Charity
2. Painful Choice
3. Delinquent Duo
4. Imperial Order
5. Number 16: Shock Master
6. Mystic Mine
7. Pot of Greed
8. Confiscation
8. The Forceful Sentry
A way to make IO more “fair” would be to errata it to say “negate the first spell activated each turn” or something along those lines. But at that point, the effect is so different they might as well print it as a new card.
Magician's Right hand be like:
@@abcrx32j The disrespect to Hand is real.
Maybe change the life point maintenance cost to a discard cost of some kind? It probably would need the player to discard more than 1 card at a time to be even be fair.
@@zanpakutoman4225 That's the hardest part of balancing IO, making it too garbo, or still way too abusable. Though imagine a deck where you still negate spells, but discard 2 cards with graveyard effects. Now you're popping stuff, or bouncing/negating, maybe even searching, while also disabling their spells lol.
A lot of decks don't care about that. Can even get cards that give you advantage when discarded. Just make it a trap version of magicians right hand and call it a day lol
I still remember a remote duel YCS where a guy playing Beetrooper lost to a well timed Imperial Order, but the thing is, the guy only played like 4 spells in the entire deck, which goes to show how powerful locking someone out of spells can be
Well there is a reason why you have these 4 spells in your deck
To summon half their extra deck, as beetrooper is link/fusion. Their strongest in archetype effect is being a bootleg chaos max dragon.
I'd say that one way that I can think to balance this card would be like "When this card is activated your opponent can discard 1/2 cards to negate and destroy it" which means built in counterplay to the card, and it also allows for more interesting gameplay as one would have to keep in mind how many cards they have in hand and if they need to be able to respond to Imperial order
Tbh, i would've expected penalty in line "discard random card for each turn passed" instead. So when you use it, your hand begins to burn and it won't stop until it's empty.
@@morgothable Hmmm... yeah, you'r right. From Magic standpoint it would've been tougher penalty.
Maybe for each card played discard another as long as this is on field?
That will make you not being able to do combo without blocked type
@@DimkaTsv that's basically what it does now. And in a way could be even a stronger card as you could set yourself so imperial order only stays 1 turn on field, your opponents turn. It's too easy to put your hand down to 1 or 0 cards and still set a board nowadays
I still have nightmares of pre-erratta imperial order
A perhaps usable version idea:
Continuous trap card:
Negate all spell effects on the field. Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you lose 1000LP (this is not optional).
Either player may discard two cards at any time to destroy this face-up card on the field.
that would let you go +3 with 1 card if they can even afford a spell after that
BA, Danger, and Dark World would love that.
I think this card is actually most similar to Magic 'lock pieces' in prison decks. They're decks designed around invalidating most of an opponent's cards. Like Moat "Non-flying creatures can't attack", Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, Trinisphere, Diving Top + Counterbalance.
They're pretty unpopular, but the big thing that stops them being broken is it's much slower in Magic to set-up a lock.
The quintessential lock piece is winter orb. And it was fairly opressive to the point where it was present in the world champion decks for the first 4 years of tournaments.
My balancing idea would be to have the live point cost apply for every spell negated and being non optional. Like with other suggestions it essentially becomes a different card at that point though.
negating 11 spells is still insane and does nothing to fix it
@@jacktheripperVII it could be a bigger cost, but honestly even 3000 life points per spell (aka two spells before you run out) would be really powerful since it would make your opponent need to go -2 before they can activate their board breaker (if they even HAVE 2 other spells in hand)
@@eden3669 if games were longer that might work but in a 3 turn game that does't mater
@@jacktheripperVII huh??
it would *matter*, it would mean your opponent can play two spells to out your imperial order before playing their board breaker, and thats not affected by game speed
but i was saying it would still be too strong anyway, because your opponent would have to go -2 before doing anything
edit: although, leaving you at 2k means youre at risk of being OTKd without your opponent needing to out your board (e.g. maybe they hit a 3k attack monster into your attack position 1k attack monster), so maybe that would be risky enough to be a good downside?
it still probably wouldnt work though, since you can just summon your weak monsters in defense, and your opponent running a burn card like gustav max isnt that common, and them getting anything to get rid of your last 2k is a lot harder when they lose two spells from their hand
This is probably a stupid question, but can someone explain the whole “this is not optional” effect to me? The exact wording on the errata is “during your standby phase you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional) OR this card is destroyed.” The “or this card is destroyed” bit is what throws me off. Does the errata effect mean I have to pay 700 LP each turn until either it gets destroyed by another card effect or until the card deals enough damage to me over multiple turns to kill me? Or is the errata effect essentially saying you must pay 700 LP for the card to stay active, so you can theoretically choose to stop paying the cost, but then IO gets destroyed (or is that how the pre-errata effect worked)?
I remember playing this card as a middle schooler right after Pharaoh's Servant dropped and having multiple people straight up refuse to believe that the pay 700 was optional at that point lmao
Soul charge would be fun to talk about in a video like this 😀
Thinking about Magic cards that lock out entire types - Archon of Valor's Reach is a huge beater that locks out a non-creature card type that you get to choose on resolution (your opponent does not know what it will lock them out of while it's on the stack), but the 6 mana casting cost makes is slower in the same way discussed here. Even then, it sees play in Legacy Elves in a way that mirrors the Swordsoul deck you mention - turn off the instant speed interaction or board wipes as necessary to wrap up the game.
I think it's also interesting how the increased number of card types in Magic mean that even when effects like this do show up, the pool of cards they hit is smaller than their counterparts in Yugioh.
The only way I could think of maybe making this able to come back is something along the lines of its only a single spell per turn maybe? Or with each negated spell you are giving a worse and worse burn effect. 1st spell negated is 1k, 2nd spell 3k, etc etc something like that even then it's still insane & the fact that it says ALL spells is what makes this card so strong.
This is my fun little version of Imperial Order :)
"Imperial Order", Trap, Continuous.
Negate all Spell effects on the field.
Your opponent's Monster and Trap card effects cannot be negated.
Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional), or Banish this card.
Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must roll a die. If the result is a 1, Destroy this card.
Once per turn, during the Standby or End Phase, your opponent can Draw any 1 card from their deck.
If it's a Spell card, they gain 4000 LP.
When this card is removed from the field, you lose the duel.
To fix Mystic Mine: Give it the Spirit Reaper treatment. Make it destroy itself if its ever targeted, even if the effect that targeted it is negated.
You could also draw inspiration from the original "Mystic Mine" Swords of Revealing Light, and add a timer to it. Make it so it destroys itself after 3(?) turns, that way it can be used as a way to slow the game down a bit, allowing you to try to get resources to push for game, which imo is a healthy-ish way of using the card, as opposed to playing it and asking: have an out? otherwise, game 2?
Would still just be a "just draw the out" card, granted that you can't have your out negated (as long as it's not duster or lightning storm)
@@ogeid772 or also make it destroy itself if you control no monster. Which mean you can still blank out for 1 turn to gather resources and opponent on their turn can try to outplay by linking off their monster or do tribute summon instead of 7 turns draw pass.
There arent a lot of cards that can target spell/traps that dont already destroy those spells and traps. Also the ones that can are stuff like Siegfried or HRDA Abyss which negate the target thus preventing this from triggering and they are also monsters so they can't activate their effects.
Reminder that Mystic Mine does not negate effects but prevent them from being activated so you would still have to draw a spell that can target Mine which narrows it down to basic S/T removal that has long become suboptimal to run.
@@luminous3558 thing is, you would add a backrow of negates to defend mine from spellcards.
So that wouldn't work anymore because even if it is negated it still targeted and mine will destroy itself.
Idea for imperial order errata/rebalance:
Sacrifice a spell/trap for activation.
Then for each turn (including the turn it was activated) where it has been activated, at the beginning of the turn, sacrifice n+1 more spell/trap.
So you activate it on your opponents turn, you have sac a card to keep it there.
Then at the start of your turn, you have to sac two.
In trying to implement what's called "cumulative upkeep" from MTG here, with an additional startup cost.
The theory is this: Since card advantage is king in ygo, saccing each turn is detrimental. If this is the only card you've put down, it sacrifices itself. If you have two, you get to use this on your opponent's turn, and then it goes away because you can't sac two to keep it around. Etc.
With a loss in resources, filling your deck with "feeder" spell/traps makes it harder to use.
Too hard?
Too hard? Not really, no.
Remember Yugioh matches basically only lasts 3-4 turns.
(one or two turns each)
Your opponent would've probably already won before they had to discard the additional two cards;
This card only needs to be on the field for one turn to massively disrupt the opponents play.
Adding harsher restrictions to the card would make it less powerful, but just as sacky and frustrating. An interesting design space is adding a cost to be able to play spells, but it would be an entirely different card at that point. (Spell cards can only be activated by paying 2000 LP/discarding 1 card from your hand at random). I went with soft costs, but you could be harsher as giving the choice to your opponent and still letting him resolve spells makes the card much less powerful.
I think it needs a harsh activation cost (something that gets felt by the user, like banishing a monster you control face down) and a reasonably harsh upkeep cost that if you don't pay still denies you using spells for that turn
The Yu-Gi-Oh design space seems really limited by not having a good resource requirement that can be built up. Anything you can do on turn 10, you can already do on turn 2. Massive game-changing effects should take a bit of set-up or you end up with a "you don't get to play today" card coming out of nowhere with little to no opportunity to respond. Also, a meta that lasts 2-3 turns means that there is a razor thin margin between unplayable and OP.
add the text "For the rest of the game, if there is a spell in your graveyard at the end of a player's turn, lose the game"
I actually wonder if you could give this card the sekkas light treatment. Where you can only activate it if you have no spell cards in your graveyard, and if you do activate it, you cannot activate spell cards of your own for the rest of the duel. And then keep the maintenance cost. Not a lot of decks have a way to banish spells from their graveyard, especially now that snow is gone. Route to fix it.
id like that. I play primarily trap centric decks, so Imperial was more a protection card as much as it was an interruption.
@@DarkCT I think I'd be kind of cool too because it would limit deck construction. Even a lot of your trap decks, you play spells that are your search power or your draw power. So you're trading that power away for something like imperial order. I don't think I would go quite as far as sekkas light did to say that you can't activate spells or traps for the rest of the duel, but I definitely think you could get away with saying no spells for the rest of the duel
@@vergilrules1616 personally in my own version i do see how far i can go without Magics. traptrix just got announced to be gaining magics and frankly after spending so many years cutting teeth against secret villages and opposing Io's, when a deck i work with gets new magics i just don't feel it. my current paleo pet deck doesn't run any at all, and my current labrynth only runs the field magic.
A lot of the cards i use get cut just because a meta deck makes them relevant, and in IO's case because the game state is so fast in most modern games.
@@DarkCT And that further reinforces a deck building choice. You can either choose to play spells, or you can choose to play IO. I think it's a really good balance actually
@@vergilrules1616 agreed. in some of my set ups id play IO directly, even given that option. it's something to be said we don't have more cards that have such harsh restrictions.
Looking a bit through MTG rules, the closest I could translate the card to an MTG card would be something along the lines of it being an Artifact, and having the effect to Counter all Sorceries. And the non-optional upkeep equivalent would be about 2 life per turn, out of the starting 20.
I think Thunder Dragon Collossus would be an interesting card to discuss with an MTG player. I wonder if it would see play in MTG, I don't think they have much searching but the protection effect, fairly big body and the generic summoning condition might still make it very strong over there?
Actually, depending on the format, an Anti-searching effect on T1 would be problematic because Fetchlands dominate every format they are legal in.
If it came down t2, then the effect would be fair because 1 Mana allows people to cast an answer. (Leonin Arbiter exists, and is good but not broken.)
However, the generic summoning condition would prove problematic, as would having the extra deck as a whole. While you can go fast in MTG, that comes at a tradeoff for consistency, because you have to draw both the fast mana, and something to do with it.
@@simonteesdale9752 i dont play magic, but could they just make collossus a companion because companions are kinda like the extra deck right?
@@davidmitchell2421 Theoretically, yes. However, companion broke magic so hard that they actually errata'd the entire mechanic. (Something unprecedented in MTG history). Out of the 10 companions, 5 of them broke magic (Lurrus, Lutri, Zirda, Gyruda & Yorion). 2 were free-rolled in decks that shouldn't be playing them (Kaheera and Jegantha), while 3 ended up at a correct level. (Umori, Obosh, Keruga)
Companions are a good example of why an extra deck would break MTG.
Lurrus is especially notable as the first card to ever be banned from Vintage for its power level iirc. Vintage. The format whose selling point is the legality of literally everything banned a card for being too strong.
@@simonteesdale9752 I don't think it would by just existing, but it would require specific resources to be played from the library, similar to Polymerization. As long as you control access to a separate resource from the library it wouldn't be inherently broken.
In Magic, there is a mechanic called Hexproof (and an older variant called shroud), where a card with it can't be targeted by spells or abilities your opponent control. Magic has a couple of cards that come in and give everything Hexproof. A recent one called Shalai, Voice of Plenty gives the controller and all OTHER creatures Hexproof. I think something similar could be implemented for Imperial Order where it negates all spell effects that aren't targeting it. So something like Lightning Storm that hits all traps wouldn't work, but Twin Twisters or Cosmic Cyclone would allow people to get rid of it. I think this strikes a nice balance of still being very powerful, but not completely unbeatable.
While IO may be the only card to be banned for two different effects, Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest in the OCG join it in cards that got banned after erratas. For the first couple years of their existence, they didn't have to be on the field for their floating effects to trigger, and while they were never banned for this, it does mean that when they eventually were banned (pre-worldwide errata), it was the OCG-errata'd/TCG versions.
Sanwitch was really good back then as not only did you get a decently strong monster but you would trigger both sangan and witch of the black forest effects to let you search out 2 monsters from your deck. You could then defuse Sanwitch to get sangan and witch of the black forest back so you can use their effects again. I used that strategy to get first turn exodia wins back in oid yugioh.
Video idea: "A Magic player and a Duel Monsters player rate Dominion cards". I wonder what they'd think about Bureaucrat and Chapel.
The best way to make imperial order more fair wile still being viable would be that it only negates spells in the main phase 1. This will allow your opponent counter play by going to the main phase 2.
That still (usually) buys you an entire turn for free against almost every deck.
The counterbalance of floodgates is supposed to be that they're specific, and IO breaks that by design
I just don't think it should exist.
12:30
Carl brings up a good point. Magic has a mana system to limit cards like this on the first turn.
Yu-Gi-Oh! has monster sacrifices.
Make it "cost" two monsters when first activated (or even three {heck, even five}). You could require the health point cost as well on the standby phase. Maybe even switch it over to a monster cost per turn. It would self counter cards like Scapegoat, though the synergy with Scapegoat (or any other card effects that summon tokens/monsters) could be neat if played before Imperial Order.
While the running cost while active is still nice to have, Adam does mention that Yu-Gi-Oh! is more or less "won" in one turn. I haven't played in over 15 years, but it was mostly like that back then too. I don't know if the cost offset (requiring a turn or two to get the requisite monsters on the field) would nerf the card enough on its own.
Anyways, thanks for the video.
keep on being awesome.
A 4000LP cost could actually be interesting. Activate it in the opponent's standby or earlier, and it is suicide. If not, it works exactly for 1 turn.
or just lose/gain some life points turn 1
You just go under/over 4k and you win.
The only thing I can think of would be if it said “you cannot activate other cards or effects the turn this card is flipped face up.” So you can use it as a spell-floodgate for the turn still but you wouldn’t be able to use your turn 1 board to stop your opponent.
Similar to Chalice of the Void, Iona is another good MTG card to talk about. In a commander game, you can completely shut out everyone from playing a color.
I feel like Iona was a better example yeah
@@fritothedemon6647 I thought of Iona as well, but I think the fact it costs so much mana takes it out of the easily playable category. Also, most decks will still have a way to get rid of it, since it only blocks one color.
@@rajamicitrenti1374 That was in the back of my mind as well. However, it is banned in commander because it's being fun if they get it out. Also, commander is the place where 8 drops actually see play. There's also reanimator shenanigans that can happen.
@@Ummidontknow14 Don't forget that painter's servant exists. Only one of them can exist in commander at the same time. If both were unbanned it would be an instant win.
@@Wafflethorpe It would be as much of a win as any other A+B combo in Commander.
Since the card itself has no trigger, it was highly versatile. In the old days, if you didn't activate on your opponent's turn, you'd activate on your own standby phase to negate the discard effect of Mirage of Nightmare. Those were the days... In addition to making the maintenance cost mandatory, the errata made it so it had to be paid during BOTH players' standby phases, effectively doubling the cost. One thing to be done which can prevent these first turn shut downs would be to include a caveat that it cannot be activated until after the third turn of the game. So, even if turn 1 player has it in their opening hand, and sets it turn 1, turn 2 player gets at least their first turn to activate spells and prepare a defense. 🤷♂
I think if they had errata'd it to only negate all normal spell cards, it would be situationally useful but not broken.
I don't like that errata. Just create a new card with that effect.
I was thinking something along the line but all normal spells kinda defy its usefulness, id make it negate all quick play spells instead.
7:35 - "Is it easy to tutor up"
Yes. Yes it was. All you needed to do was Link climb into Curious the Lightsworn Dominion, use his effect to dump it from deck to grave, then link Curious away with 1 other monster to make Knightmare Gryphon and have that Imperial Order set to your field. It was INSANELY easy.
9:04 - "If you have exactly 700 life point you pay and you lose"
That's not correct. In the TCG you cannot be forced to pay an amount of LP that would cause you to lose the game and Imperial Order would instead explode. However, in the OCG in Japan/Asia you ARE forced to pay 700 if you are exactly at 700, if you're UNDER 700 it simply explodes.
You also didn't mentioned that back then Imperial Order only needed to be paid on your standby phase. The errata changed it to be paid on both standby phases.
You have to show vanity's emptiness. Explain that it saw zero play for over a year after release and was a short print common
We still have quite alot of Imperial Orders in the game, but none of those are banned. Perhaps looking at those will give hints on how to balance it. Hidden Village of the Spellcasters requires you to control a spellcaster in order to apply. Spellbreaker of the Ice Barrier is tied to one of the worst archetypes. Naturia Beast or Exterio have hard summoning requirements. White Howling requires you to use water monsters and have your opponents spell in GY.
Oh boy naturia beast.
Actually norello or what he's called is also negating spell cards like a madmen.
The old IO essentially reads: "Spell cards are entirely useless until you (the IO user) draw one you want to activate".
I'd say Anti-Spell Fragrance is basically what a balanced Imperial Order would be - a broad-scope continuous trap that prevents the use of spells, balanced by only delaying them rather than completely shutting them down.
@@steeveedragoon Anti-Spell Fragrance is not problematic.
@@yasharthpandey6317 only to pendulum players
@@yasharthpandey6317 There's no way you actually think Anti-Spell Fragrance isn't problematic. The only functional difference between it and IO is that you have to flip it preemptively in DP.
Yeah they can activate their spells the next turn, but they aren't getting a next turn if they can't break your board without their spells (oh and go figure, most cards that help break boards are spells).
Anti spell is still a banworthy card due to how impactful shutting off spells for even just 1 turn is. Anti spell is IO for all intents and purposes. If you face a decent board backed by either you just straight up lose the game.
The only difference is that IO is a chainable negate while Anti spell needs to be preemptively used and the opponent can chain droplet.
We are currently in a tier 0 monsterbased format though so right now its probably fine since spells are the last thing you have to worry about.
@@luminous3558 there hasn't even been a major official tournament yet...why makes you think this is tier 0?
10:58 I'd say 'City in a Bottle' is the closest Magic card in terms of design (a card that stays on board and prevents a certain type of card to be played).
But Magic has a ton of "Hosers" (cards that hard counter a specific thing).
'Blood Moon' is a notorious example that sees a bunch of play.
Apart from adding a restriction making the card near useless (this card can only be activated at the start of your Main Phase 1) there is no good way to balance this card nowadays. Its funny that this came out at a time when negating spells took a discard (magic jammer) or was unreliable (magic drain). I guess the original thought was it was balanced by preventing you from using staple spells like pot of greed, monster reborn, or raigeki, but then they made it optional to keep up, meaning you could leave it up when you were ahead, but get rid of it if your opponent got ahead and you needed your comeback cards. Releasing it with an errata was even stupider since they should know a lot better by now.
Just a thought, could you change IO so the cost was paid every time a spell was negated and then fiddle with the cost to balance it so if your opponent has a bunch of spells they could OTK you?
The weirdest thing to me is that when they added the "not optional" clause, is that they didn't just remove the "or the card is destroyed" at the same time. If the purpose is to basically force you to remove it or make it stay until it drains you. Then what purpose is there in having a destroy clause on the card itself? Makes the text needlessly more confusing.
Is clearly to be explicit with what to do if the player can't pay the cost.
Without the destroy part the card would just stit on the field if you don't have enough life to pay.
Something interesting is to give it a punishing cost like whenever the activation of card or card effects are negated, you banish cards face down from your extra deck. Or for each card effects negated by this card you receive 2k damage at the end of the turn
"For each card negated by this effect, take 2000 damage"
Sky strikers: a freebie?
I feel like maybe one way to errata the card would be to make its resource cost relate to cards rather than life points. In that regards, I have two ideas:
1. When a spell effect is activated: you must discard 1 card or this card is destroyed; negate the spell effect.
2. When this card is activated: discard any number of cards, and add that many tokens to this card. When a spell effect is activated: remove 1 token from this card or this card is destroyed; negate the spell effect.
The idea for both of these suggestions is to associate a meaningful cost for each negation made, rather than just having an inconsequential cost for each turn the card is active. That way, the opponent is able to induce at least some negative effect while they're blocked, and also the person who placed the card is also incentivized to not let the card remain in place for too long.
And if sending cards to the GY is not consequential enough cost, then we could make it so that cards get banished, or facedown banished.
I think the closest card to Imperial Order is Counterbalance. Its really a 2 card combo of Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, but that combination can completely lock an opponent out of the game.
I'd say Decree of Silence but with an upkeep cost rather than depletion mechanic (like a cross between Decree of Silence and Glacial Chasm?).
7:38 Actually, a deck called Scrap Dinosaur used to be able to end on Imperial Order almost every turn. A card called Curious, the Lightsworn Dominion can send it from Deck to GY, and then you can Set it from the GY using Knightmare Gryphon.
Man, I miss Scrap Dino and Dragon Link.
You could add a new conditions to the trap that says something like "Activate this trap only if the opponent controls X or more spells," where X is some number appropriate to YGO.
-an MTG player
Oh this is funny as it would make it from the best to one of the quite useless cards in an instant :D The thing is: You don't control Spells most of the time as the only ways Spells stay (as public knowledge) on the field is field spells and permanent spells. So when X is more than one it wouldn't even be situational anymore lol
@@LunaWindsoul Interesting. At X=2, would it be good enough for sideboard?
@@FaceD0wnDagon Well, depends on format I guess - If there is something like Tri Brigade or any other Deck with a field spell or a perm Spell you know they bring out in first turn, then maybe. But then again it would be too easy to out it as you only have to play your normal spells first and afterwards your field/perm spell. There are way better sideboard options I guess than errataed IO with the restriction that there must be 2 open spells to activate it
@Luna, die mit der Windseele it would've been played back when sky striker was the best deck probably, also would likely see siding if mystic mine burn decks got too good
'you can only activate this card if both players activated X or more spell cards.'
I suppose you could re-make IO to either have a limited turn counter like swords of revealing light, or force you to place x number of cards onto the bottom of your deck. The easiest I could see is just remaking the card into a counter trap instead, or limiting the number of cards it can stop. There's also the option of making you return a card to your deck or banishing for cost for each spell card you want to stop.
As pointed out the turn amount doesn’t matter as even one turn is too good. The way to fix it is maybe make it like Future Fusion in that there’s a delay in effect but as also pointed out such a thing would make it unusable (as is the case for Future Fusion)
You would have to add an additional restriction to the card like "the controller of this card cannot conduct their battle phase or cannot add cards from deck to hand" or something else like that
what if they outs it with one of their monsters during their turn? this is useless its still overpowered
You fix mystic mine by turning it into the magic card Ensnaring Bridge which reads "Creatures with power greater than the number of cards in your hand can't attack." For yu-gi-oh, change the restriction from creature power to number of creatures. So if you have 1 card in hand, 1 creature your opponent controls can attack and etc. Ensnaring Bridge is a very powerful card, but the huge downside of having no cards in hand is a big deal that your entire deck has to be built around and would be in yu-gi-oh as well especially for things like hand traps. But not impossible to build around in the spirit of the game. That restriction would actually target the decks which want to use it in a serious way rather than the effect just being free.
How could you not at least mention Teferi Time Raveler. He eliminated your opps instants. He removed and entire aspect of Magic, instant timed responses.
So here's what I'm thinking:
Imperial Order
Normal Trap
Negate all spell effects on the field for the next 2 turns. This card can only be played during your standby phase.
This way, it's still strong but it can't be a flip up during your opponents turn and just straight win the game card. Probably not gonna be run at all given that average duel time is like, 3 turns but still.
pause it at 1:36, that face says everything he's thinking, he's thinking out loud "are you f****ng serious??"
A fair errata for IO would be "pay 8 000 lp to activate this card, on each standby phase pay 10 000 lp, if you can't pay as much as you can" aka if you wanted to play this bs card you shouldn't have any possibility of winning
The only errata to IO I can think of would be something along the lines of Vanity's Emptiness' effect, or perhaps something like
"If you control a face-up monster, destroy this card. This card cannot be activated while you control a face-up monster. For the rest of the turn after this face-up card is destroyed, the controller of this card cannot activate spell cards or effects." To the text.
This would prevent it from being used to a degree, but the amount of people that would still use it, maybe set it turn one, activate it on opponents turn 2 as a floodgate, then immediately go into turn 3 to set up their board is still substantial.
"This card can only be activated at the start of your main phase 1"
It would mean you could only activate it on your second turn, and would have to suffer through the effect as well.
Pay half your HP for activating it and 1000hp for each opponent effect negated this way. You are still giving your opponent a way to defeat you somehow.
I have an interesting errata for it. Imperial Order: Declare a name of yugioh card in your deck. Once declared, Negate the activation and effects of all Spells on the field. At the start of your Standby Phase, (this is not optional) banish a copy of the declared card from the deck, or destroy this card.
Here is my idea to balance Imperial Order:
Negate all Spell effects on the field. *When a Spell Card is activated, you take 700 damage.* Once per turn, during the Standby Phase, you must pay 700 LP (this is not optional), or this card is destroyed. *When this card is destroyed, you take damage equal to the number of spell cards in your opponent’s GY x1000.*
The numbers on the damage may have to be adjusted, but the idea is that the if used recklessly the opponent can burn you for game.
Ways to tune this more is to up the damage on spell activation such as *When a Spell Card is activated, halve your LP.*
and you can also add *Your opponent can activate Trap Cards on the turn they are Set* to punish blind activation on against trap decks and easy answers via sideboard trap speed removal.
I would add “You can only play one spell on your turn” or maybe “You can only draw one card on your turn” as a balance option
There was a widely-hated floodgate card not too long ago in the MTG meta very similar to Imperial Order (Teferi the Time Raveler). While it didn't completely disable enemy Spell Cards, it was an enemy-only disable Spells and Traps during each of your own turns until it got destroyed. (It did other busted stuff on top of that.) It eventually got banned, and I think it got banned in the legacy format too. Just all-around banned everywhere, and MTG rarely bans cards (although it's been more frequent in recent years).
And also MTG has no limited list so you would have 4 copies in a 60 card deck.
My idea would be to change it to "When this card is activated and during every standby phase you must pay half your life total". Would introduce more risk/reward into the card with hopefully still keeping it viable.
One way to errata IO is to add an additional mandatory tribute or discard cost during your opponent's standby phase. This balances the card because the player with IO in the field is not increasing the cards in their hand on their draw phase.
A different way to errata IO is in addition to its current life point cost the player with IO on field has to also mandatory skip their draw phase while IO is on the field.
Still too good unless the cost is too steep. You still win on your next turn after paying the cost once, twice max, and skipping draw phases hardly matters when you already have everything you need to play. It would at most end up in all those decks that set full boards up and still have 5 cards in hand. Even banishing a card face-down might not be enough.
MTG player here:
It'd be really interesting to see YGO players opinions on Stax pieces or hatebears. (Although because they often tie into the resource system, they might be hard to translate).
Example:
Chalice of the void (X)(X) - Artifact
Chalice of the void enters with X charge counters on it.
Whenever a player casts a spell with Mana Value X, counter that spell.
YGO translation:
Chalice of the void - continuous spell.
When you play chalice of the void, sacrifice any number of monsters. Put a number of counters on chalice of the void equal to half the total combined levels, ranks and link ratings of the sacrificed monsters.
Whenever a player plays a monster with a level, rank or link rating equal to the number of counters on chalice of the void, negate that monster's effects and destroy it.
Hmm... It's definitely a strange card. I wouldn’t call it unusable, but the fact it shuts down certain levels at a high cost could become a really sacky card. Like lvl 4 spam decks being shut down entirely.
Yugioh has a ton of floodgates and most of them are frustrating to play against. Add in a floodgate that can stop an entire level of monster that you can choose could be theoretically brutal.
The thing is most decks break floodgates one of two ways, a handful of board clearing spells or monster effects.
I won’t say that it's op or weak, just that it's not a future proofed card.
Like if you shut down 4s (levels, ranks, link ratings) that's decimating to a lot of decks.
Worse yet, you can adapt the level to crush whatever rank/link/level you are facing.
Decks like sky strikers would be crippled by turning off their link monsters, and as long as you know the key bottlenecks...
Yeah the card could be game ending/warping.
I remember when this card dropped. The arguments over how it worked at Books a Million and Wizards of the Coast were heated.
Would imperial order be fixed if it only negated the first spell played by each player on every turn? similar to Erayo from MTG
Imperial Order Fix: (Same effect as now), but add "except for spells which target 'Imperial Order'".
That way it can still be used to shut down spells, but it can't protect itself from removal. Maybe add a condition where the owner of IO can't target it with his own spells too.
Long time Yu-Gi-Oh player here, and for my opinion on Imperial Order I believe it should be a 3 or none type of card. Mostly people were upset about being sacked than the card itself it feels like. If you actually have 3 you'd have to put more main deck outs which makes the game interactive imo. The main problem Card Games have is not hitting direct hits I.E Urza for magic and Yu-Gi-Oh take your pick Firewall dragon was such a menace forEVER, but each banlist added yet another card to pay for it's sins. Like as soon as imperial order got unbanned Sky Striker started tearing up the scene. Which sure anti-spell "hurts" them it just wasn't anywhere enough. We each have our own views, but I'm just giving mine as a since the beginning player. I quit for awhile during Bujin H.A.T format, and never during B.A, Shaddoll, Zoodiac format so I can't say the whole time.
Next time do Apoqliphort Towers from the context of that format where there were no Kaiju and EU didn't have Diamond Krab King legal yet.
Great video. I love the Yu-Gi-Oh/ MTG crossovers. I'm an MTG player and these bring me to the Yu-Gi-Oh channel.
you could make it either only activatable on your own turn, or only apply to the player who is currently in turn, ie. for the first example it can be used as a spell defense to protect from negates but not to shut down your opponent on their turn, or in the second version, it can be used on your opponents turn, and it negates, but you now have to deal with not having no spells on your turn.
My first thought of a magic analogue was Collector Ouphe. It reads, "activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated". This means all mana rocks are useless, which in high-powered formats, and especially against artifact-based decks, is brutal.
Also, Humility converts all creatures into vanilla 1/1s. It's not legal in most formats, but if you want to really piss off your commander table, you can throw that down. It basically entirely shuts down any creature-based strategy, which is really the vast majority of decks. Control and spellslinger wouldn't really care I suppose.
I could go on, there's some pretty evil magic cards. But there's so many formats and so many cards that most of the time they don't end up being a huge issue.
12:06 "It's just another Modern Monday..."
16:23 "This card can only be activated if there is a spell card in an opponent's graveyard."
Sure, you can't stop their first spell, but after they've gotten a normal spell off, watch out!
I think the only way to deal with Imperial Order is to require it be activated in your turn, probably either your Standby Phase (and thus pay the cost the same turn it is activated) or start of Main Phase 1 (so you can't use Spells that turn). That would slow the card down so much that people would likely stop playing it, but it might make sense as a Side Deck card if there is a slower Spell-focused deck to deal with (e.g. Mystic Mine decks).
Perfect idea.
It could say "Negate all Normal Spells" instead.
That way, the opponent can destroy it with staple backrow removal Quick Play Spells like Twin Twister.
"The art on Imperial Order is just a king who doesn't know how to dab."
I'll never look at that card any other way ever again.
2 possible fixes:
1) Remove the lifepoint cost, and instead just simply make you lose during the second Standby Phase after activation, without the ability to respond or negate the effect (so you must win on your next turn after activation)
2) Keep the lifepoint cost, but also make it negate all of your monster effects in ANY zone, and halve all damage you do.
The first kills any deck that can't reliably win the turn behind it (Eldlich and stall decks) the other kills any deck's ability of winning on the turn after activation
With regard to the "cost" angle which came up in discussion, that's not a bad way to get around it...
"The turn player can discard 1 Spell card. If they do, this card's effects are negated until the next Standby Phase."
Means that a player can burn an otherwise useless spell to gain access to all their other spells, and potentially even grab that spell back from the grave on the same turn.
Idk, just an idea.
7:35 you can tutor it tho with curious send it and make gryphon to set it if you can make them.
An interesting thought here is that in 2019 though, IO had a chance to be a completely dead card cause of a certain spell being at 3. Still unsure why Sekka's Light got limited with how much it restricted deckbuilding.
EDIT: Also forgot that red reboot was at 3 also, as well as Pankratops. Looking back, IO had more reliable outs than when it got banned, mainly cause said reliable outs got hit a lot.
Because it's Pot of Greed for decks that didn't care about having spells in them. Which is a fair few, considering how monster effect-heavy the game is now. Arguably, there are fewer such decks than there are decks that don't care about the banish cost of the other Pot cards that let you go +1, but, at least PoD is semi-limited. PoE doesn't see play because of how few decks there are out there that are still good without half their extra deck, I guess, but IMO its cost is less harsh than PoD's so I really wonder why it's not semi-limited too.
Whoever runs this page : Tell the dude on the left, as a fellow sweaty under cameras guy he should never wear a hoodie. He looks nervous and hot, which can be brought down visually by just being a little cooler. TAKE OFF THE HOODIE BRO!
Nice vid, love the idea.
4:52
Jinzo: **cries in the corner**
One potential fix would to be to replace or supplement the life point with another cost that forces the player using it to tribute somewhere around two-three(unsure which would be the sweet spot here) monsters in order to activate it initially.
Combo decks would lose a bit of their presence during their opponent's turn, and much slower control decks end up having to figure out how to shill out those kinds of resources without it feeling painful.
the way I would describe Imperial Order as a lapsed MTG fan is... it's like if your favorite Stax piece had flash. Like, imagine if Stasis had Flash. Spell cards are Yugioh's Instants, Sorceries, and in a way, enchantments. they are your non-monster proactive plays in Yugioh. Traps are a bit like the MTG mechanic fortell, except they're susceptible to removal, but... at the time of imperial Order's printing, practically every bit of removal worth playing was on a spell or was... I dunno, Dust Tornado.
Hosing spells, and then having the option to not pay the Life Points to get your crack at your own spells was like time walking someone. Brutal, BRUTAL shit.
This would make a good magic card. There's plenty of effects that hose certain card types, we just have 6-7 common card types.
Artifacts tend to get the most hate, every color has some way that they interact with artifacts. In powerful formats people play artifact hate like "activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated". There are creatures that prevent your opponents from casting spells, ways to stop gameplay by locking the board and being the only player who can act.
Fun stuff
11:10 I would say Teferi, Time Raveler would be a better comparison, because it locks out opponents from using instants/flash in a way.
Imagine having Imperial Order, Skill Drain, and Master Peace on the field.
rip
I always like converting the text to another card game's style. Maybe if this was an enchantment that said "Players can't cast noncreature spells. At the beginning of your upkeep, pay 7 life. If you can't, destroy this enchantment"
I think that the errata should be something like, "This card can only activate in your turn"
One way I think IO could potentially be a bit more balanced is if the opponent gets the option to discard a card (perhaps a spell) to negate the activation (similar to Magic Drain).
IO still functions as normal, but it’s ultimately the opponent who chooses whether or not they want to save their spells by discarding a card or just play through it, which adds the risk to the user of IO in knowing that their negate may not even work.
This way, IO can still be an imposing card, only now it’s not so instant win
Imperial Order Errata Idea: If you control no cards, you can activate this card from your hand. You can only activate this card at the start of your Main Phase 1. Negate all spell effects on the field. Every time a spell card is activated, you take 1000 damage. During the end phase, if you did not activate 2 or more spell cards, banish this card-facedown.
I think this might as well be a new card, but what if you had to discard a card each time to negate a spell, again not optional and destroyed if can't be done. It definitely brings it down but could be too much but I think 1 card per turn would be not enough as you could hold a single card use on their turn pay your card then it would destroy itself for your turn and you could have your good spell card set ready for this turn
When it comes to banning an archetype in magic it depends on what you mean. There is a 9 cost gargoyle that counters the first non creature spell each turn. there are a couple of different spirits that limit the number spells each player can cast to 1. There are a number of cards that completely negate monster attacks, something like omen machine disables peoples ability to draw. there are cards that turn instances into sorceries, cards that make your whole field and you untargetable, there are cards that make enchantments unplayable, cards that make artifacts unplayable, cards that add a cost to all cards of a type, card combos that make land unplayable and destroy all land (looking at you mycosynth lattuce + march of the machines), and many others, the balance factor usually being that they cost 4+ mana meaning the earliest a player will likely play one is second turn rotation or they will end up comitting 4+ cards to locking a portion of the field on turn 1.
It's not an imperial order errata but what could be a fun and good replacement that i have on my mind atm it's called
Indecisive ruler
[Trap ♾️]
Once per turn (not optional)sent 2 random normal monster,or 1 random spell,or 1 random trap from your deck to the gy. (The cards that's been sent to gy cannot activate their effect this turn)if not destroy this card
Then you can sacrifice 1000 lp to roll a dice
1-2 destroy all spells on the field
3-4 destroy all trap on the field (except this card)
5-6 this card will be destroyed
if the opponent have more facedown spell/trap than you you can activate this card from the grave /hand immediately, if the cards is activated this way double the lp cost and banish this card facedown at the end of the turn
You can only activate one "indecisive ruller" per turn
Make it so you have to pay life each time it negates something, but then make the pay life optional
Still broken
I think the best bet for Errta-ing it is to change to a different typeof maintenance cost. Not life points. Maybe send a card from hand to grave. Or shuffle back a face down card from spell/trap zone or something. Card advantage is the primary resource of the game, so make it cost in that way.
I would say the closest thing to this in magic would be Linvala that says opponents creatures cant activate effects. Notably its one of only two or three cards that DONT give exception to mana generating abilties. Even stronger would be Iona, an angel that prevented opponents from playing a chosen color, potentially ruining an entire deck or making a multicolor deck pitifully handicapped. there was also the infamous mycosynth lattice and Karn combo, where lattice made every card an artifact and Karn said your opponents artifacts (all their cards now) cant activate any abilities.
There are combos that do similar effects in magic, but you need more setup. Microsynth lattice turns all permanents into artifacts and March of the Machines turns all non-creature artifacts into X/X artifact creatures with X=their converted mana cost. Land cards, the most common source of mana, have a cost of 0, so they automatically die. Both of these cards stay in play indefinitely, so if either player tries to play a land, it will immediately die. There are other sources of mana, such as certain artifacts. I had a teacher who ran this combo and his deck would develop these mana-producing artifacts before permanently wiping out lands.
Of course you need to draw and pay for these card, which leaves you open to damage and disruption. Yu-Gi-Oh seems to have a more limited design space because it doesn't have a good resource building mechanic. Casual Yu-Gi-Oh had a bit of a resource with only allowing one normal/tribute summon and needing to sacrifice creatures to get more powerful ones, but there is no such limit on spell, traps, and special summons. Even if you can't find a way to get around tribute summoning a creature, you can probably special summon a few sacrifices with a spell.
I've designed 2 card games, none of which I've released because I'm a poor slacker. My errata would be to keep the text as is post-errata, and add
"you must choose one of the following effects: your monsters have their abilities negated OR you cannot activate cards in your spell/trap zone until this card leaves the field. Doing this is a condition of activating this card."