The most experienced Tengu Format Players are going to be the x-factor in the 3v3 tournament at Vegas. The top team is going to have a strong Tengu Format player with a smart meta-call.
Really hope this video reaches people, TP has so much potential if more people were willing to give it a shot and exploring rather then just defaulting to playing plants or agents.
The one thing i can say about playing retro formats is that we now have the luxury to playtest decks longer. Remember, we only get 6 months with a banlist before we get the next one. These retro formats also allow us to experiment with cards/decks for longer periods of time. We no longer have to worry about making the deck good enough for regionals or ycs/shonnen jumps. Yes, i played when Shonnen jumps existed.
Thanks for the shoutout Tyler. Are Agents and Plants better than my Zombie list? Yeah. But the more important question would be: Do I give a shit when my opponent is on plants or agents vs my zombie list? HELL NO!
In goat and Edison we eventually saw enough innovation that the historically popular decks of both (goat control and QuickDraw) were pushed down to tier 2. There are merits to historical builds but they were made in a different context to the modern decks and had a much shorter window for development. In regular yugioh the priority is finding the strongest thing you can in the shortest possible time; this severely limits the scope for experimentation. Competitive games can take years to fully develop and in the case of retro formats we now have the benefit of infinite time and no card pool changes to be thinking about over time. I’m glad we have ultimate time wizard at YCS events now because they can completely break down all notions of historical YCS/SJC placings holding the most weight.
Deck like x-sabers and Six Sam are heavily slept on in this format. I do hope the YCS in Vegas does have different decks topping than your typically plant or agents.
This is what I've been trying to explain to people for soo long. Also I hate when people also blow off this format because they see maxx c or other x broken card. But yeah agents and plants are popular but there are soo many good decks in this format that it hurts to see people writing them off. There are soo many unique playstyles and win conditions in this format. You just gotta try something new.
I'm more recently started to look into the format, and as an Edison player, yeah your points are super valid. The fact that there's a singular deck that could be played vs both decks (Gravekeeper) to start hosing them speaks that there's not just a 2 deck meta. It's a format for a reason, where multiple decks can shine. Hell I'm putting together Dragunity as my first Tengu deck cuz I never got to fully explore the deck when I was younger. And some of the plays, if uncontested, can wipe the floor with both those decks between all the possible answers in Dragunity. A singular normal Summon of Dux can out a Nat Beast if you go into Orient Dragon. Add Ravine and REDMD into the mix and you can still extend and play more after dealing with a floodgate style card. We just need more playtesting in the format to really break out a wider picture of "What's good?"
I have a tier SS++$$ 00 tengu format deck I’ll be dropping at locals time wizard in two weeks and it’s already undefeated in my head and totally original. Stay tuned folks
You mentioned the point and disagree with it but essentially yes: The historical meta had an unmatched test pool. Exactly how many players are actively playing the format right now? Playing a local level event 1000 times with roughly the same handful of people does not alter tiers. Especially this format which I personally deem the best in the game's history (I've played since 2002) where the difference between meta and non-meta is small enough to give a ton of decks a real fighting chance and this makes it harder to distinguish between a better tiered deck or a better player. I think it is fine to not truly know if X deck is strictly better than Y deck in a tier list set in stone. There's a lot of incompatibles to compare and match-ups that shake off data as some might find themselves in a rock/paper/scissors relationship with each other, and people adjust things to counter that and shift representation or people get their own pet decks which they absolutely insist on using and eventually will be topping something once in a while.
Bro you want this forced narrative to be true so bad you fall into your own illusory truth effect. Plants and Agents will always be a strong tier 1 deck in this format (the fact your thumbnail even tells people to stop playing those decks is ridiculous) and if this format ever becomes sweaty enough to the point of either goat or Edison I believe Plants and Agents will still continue to be the most played decks and I don’t even believe those are the only tier 1 decks in the format. It’s also convenient you cherry pick one event to try and push this when the opposite can be done showing that tengu and agents have steamrolled top cuts. It would be a stronger claim if you showed more than just one example instead of well let’s just go by the most recent event. Your tier list is also counterintuitive. If someone looking to get into this format sees the tier list you have in this video and they hear you say to join the discord most decks you have in your “tier 1 - 1.5” are labeled as either rogue or table 500 in the discord which just leads to discouragement and confusion.
This video in no way claims tengu plants and agents are weak decks or not tier 1. In fact, if you watch the whole video, I mentioned that people will still likely play the decks regardless of what I say, and its targeted to those wanting to pursue new or different decks. This isnt cherrypicking. There are multiple events that demonstrate this concept. The biggest point I was making is if a tournament saturated with the 2 decks had 1 or few of them make it out of top 8, then it logically would not make sense to make a claim that plants and agents are significantly better than everything else they are simply equal or close. Even in a single one off event that outcome with those ratios should be impossible if they are "the best." This is demonstrating a simple concept from a recent event. I cover every top cut on my channel and plenty of others reflect this as well. If the single example proves my point, then by adding more, I'm only adding redundancy, extending the video, and wasting my viewers' time. I also have been transparent that I fundamentally disagree with the tier list in the tengu plant discord in both my videos and in the discord itself, but it's not my server. Lastly, the thumbnail is a teaser to the theme of the video, not an actual demand of my viewers to stop playing the decks.
I played this format extensively. There were 3 ycs with 1000's of people and the top cut had mostly like 25 tengu plant decks. And also tengu is a hard af deck to play correctly. Thays why great players topped back to back. Fuck billy brake won 2 with the same deck. I will say catsith chaos is another good one. But results alone u cant say its not the best WITH a great player behind it.
I would argue that good historical players had better average game knowledge and likely could top with anything. Also, plants is not really complex. Maybe for the time. There's a reason those same historical players don't see as much success in modern time wizard tournaments. It's because the gap has relatively closed. Most people understand the complexities of retro yugioh now. The point is you can take billy brake on plants and throw him in a modern tengu tournament and I would in no way guarantee that he would even top. I think the biggest factor would be matchups/bracket luck and overall luck of the draw. Is he capable? Absolutely. Was he ahead of the game in 2011? Also yes. But is he miles above modern tengu players? Definitely not.
At the part with the tier list, it just depends on how you define it; it’s semantics. I would personally only put 4 decks in tier 1, 0 in tier 0, and most of the decks you have in tier 1 I’d put in tier 2. My tier 1 would be defined as likely to win and my tier 2 would be likely to top. Of course anything can do well, but that doesn’t mean it’s tier 1, but it does if you define it as “could win” instead of “likely to”.
Yes, but that's where it's tough because of my draw the line example. It's unclear how these decks stack up and most of it is tournament representation. For example , there was a Italy tournament with a lot of catsith decks represented and catsith dominated top cut. That to me, demonstrates a very close meta in which no deck is definitively better than the other. Realistically, most decks in tengu have a near 50% w/r builds, and players define those results. And optimization can improve those w/rs but that optimization is tough if everyone blanket statement accepts that plants and agents are "the best."
"I see people wasting veiler on venus and earth" I feel thats a product of modern players coming to 2011 thinking we look for choke points and thinking thats what builds tempo. They think "hitting this stops their turn so my turn will run it over and the games done." Because thats how the games played now. They dont think about what the board state will be turn 5,8,10+ and think maybe i should let that go through cuz i need this for X. Which isnt bad, its all about learning and what makes time wizard fun. And you cant stop me from playing the decks i loved back in 2011 :^) [Agent and SS]
@@tcgrewind Whenever I try to sell people on Tengu Plant format. I always say Tengu plant and Agents are good entry level decks to come in and learn the format. Once you play a tournament or 2, you can start looking at other archetypes you've been seeing and experiment. Kinda like how if I try to get people to play edison I say "try dandywarrior, it's fun and simple to pilot. But flexible."
tengu plant and agents aren't the only strong decks,it's true. Also GK, Heroes and Catsith decks are quite strong. Honestly the problem with Tengu isn't that tengu plant and agent are strong but there are too many unfunny things like every decks smashing in Rai-oh that prevents lots of decks from playing, gravekeepers having necrovalley,royal tribute and descendant + recruiter and rite of spirit. I'd say that compared to Edison there are more broken things and non-games, which is why i don't see Tengu ever surpassing Edison. The gap between t1 and other decks is larger in Tengu than in Edison.
edison has infinitely more cards with 0 - minimal counterplay. Cold wave, trunade, honest, kalut, royal oppression (has 1 mst), caius/ monarchs are infinitely more broken without veiler. Every single card in tengu plant format has counterplay. And the counterplay is generic.
@@tcgrewind generic counterplay to royal tribute? Also the argument "it has counterplay" is a bit weak considering that also in modern everything has a counterplay,but this doesn't solve things. The key point is that edison is a slow formater format,that's why there's lots of diff decks topping in very large tournaments. When i started edison i didn't like it,but the more i played the more i liked it and i changed my mind about it. What happened with Tengu Plant was the contrary: i started as an enthusiast but then i had to change my mind in a negative way.
@jiara5219 turn 1 royal tribute is a 1 deck play that occurs less than 20% of the time. And going second vs many decks it loses a ton of value. But there is technically counter play to royal tribute. You can herald of green light it many agent decks side that in now. Regardless it's such a non factor. Modern may have counterplay but the massive difference is the generic couterplay. Most decks already run the key counterplay tools. Like veiler, mst, lance, debunk, warnings ect. Edison got large because it grew in popularity over covid and saw massive promotion from larger content creators saying it's "the best." It is strictly worse than tengu in evert capacity. Less decks, worse gameplay, more oppressive cards. That being said while everything I stated is true, it's still technically a matter of opinion and preference.
@@tcgrewind green light isn't a card that u can side in non-fairy decks. There's still Gemini Imps to side but even there the problem with RT is that you either see the out in time or you're gonna suffer. You can win after RT sacked u 3 monsters,but its a lot harder and tilting. Edison worse gameplay? sure bro. Less decks? Cardpool is smaller but cardpool alone doesn't make the meta more diverse. The meta actually become smaller when you fear bringing an heavy-monster deck due to RT existing or trap heavy decks gets fucked by royal decree.
@jiara5219 go peep my "debunking tengu plant propaganda vid." It covers all these topics and demonstrates how irrelevant royal tribute is. Technically, royal tribute also exists in edison lol. But even between the 2 there are more counterplay tools to rt in tengu than in edison. And a year's worth of more cards, generic counter play, increase in generic consistency cards along side a non opressive meta are all massive contributors to tengu being infinitely more diverse. Tengu is the most diverse format in history and no amount of edison copium can disprove that. Again all this is demonstrated in my video.
I think the only people who understand the variety of the format are players that have played through it. Seeing all these decks reminds me of what was in my locals during that time period. Not everyone was always able to afford "the top decks", other stuff handled their own too
Agents are still strong in the format dont get me wrong this video is to try to combat the concept people push of plants and agents being the only good decks.
@@CocTheElf One of the reasons I've stopped playing as much modern and starting getting back into old formats is all the shaming people seem to engage in when it comes to deck choices whether that be casuals talking down people playing meta or meta players being elitist's towards casuals. This mentality seems to be seeping into alternate formats now I guess its just a problem that is unavoidable lol
@@MrFlackle people will have an strong opinion anyway, the wants to show that they are other good decks. That the great thing about this format Plants and Agents are the best decks but since the power gap is so low you have so many strong contenders If you wanna go for Agents try out Gallis or the other Mash variants they are super fun
I think writing off a deck you don't understand is unfair. If someone else can see success with it and you can not, then it would be more probable you have a lack of understanding on how the deck functions then that it "sucks." Not tryna put you on blast. It's totally fine it's a common mindset. But it is something to challenge yourself.
thx man, thought people would hate me or assume i have less knowledge about the deck just because my opinion differs. Glad it is not the case.@@tcgrewind
Whatever I play is tier 0.
The most experienced Tengu Format Players are going to be the x-factor in the 3v3 tournament at Vegas. The top team is going to have a strong Tengu Format player with a smart meta-call.
the winner was just playing regular tengu lol
Really hope this video reaches people, TP has so much potential if more people were willing to give it a shot and exploring rather then just defaulting to playing plants or agents.
I think a lot of the better players also pick up plant/agent so that gives those decks a bit of an advantage in tops id imagine
Also true.
The one thing i can say about playing retro formats is that we now have the luxury to playtest decks longer. Remember, we only get 6 months with a banlist before we get the next one.
These retro formats also allow us to experiment with cards/decks for longer periods of time. We no longer have to worry about making the deck good enough for regionals or ycs/shonnen jumps. Yes, i played when Shonnen jumps existed.
Thanks for the shoutout Tyler.
Are Agents and Plants better than my Zombie list? Yeah.
But the more important question would be: Do I give a shit when my opponent is on plants or agents vs my zombie list?
HELL NO!
In goat and Edison we eventually saw enough innovation that the historically popular decks of both (goat control and QuickDraw) were pushed down to tier 2.
There are merits to historical builds but they were made in a different context to the modern decks and had a much shorter window for development. In regular yugioh the priority is finding the strongest thing you can in the shortest possible time; this severely limits the scope for experimentation.
Competitive games can take years to fully develop and in the case of retro formats we now have the benefit of infinite time and no card pool changes to be thinking about over time.
I’m glad we have ultimate time wizard at YCS events now because they can completely break down all notions of historical YCS/SJC placings holding the most weight.
I just discovered your channel a few weeks ago and I'm already (back) in the format. Thanks for all your content!
Deck like x-sabers and Six Sam are heavily slept on in this format. I do hope the YCS in Vegas does have different decks topping than your typically plant or agents.
Have you thought of doing some deck profiles and breakdowns of each Tengu Plant Deck? I’d really love to see one on Nordics.
I have a video on nordics and all decks are on my website.
This is what I've been trying to explain to people for soo long. Also I hate when people also blow off this format because they see maxx c or other x broken card. But yeah agents and plants are popular but there are soo many good decks in this format that it hurts to see people writing them off. There are soo many unique playstyles and win conditions in this format. You just gotta try something new.
Good video! Thanks for the shoutout
I'm more recently started to look into the format, and as an Edison player, yeah your points are super valid. The fact that there's a singular deck that could be played vs both decks (Gravekeeper) to start hosing them speaks that there's not just a 2 deck meta. It's a format for a reason, where multiple decks can shine. Hell I'm putting together Dragunity as my first Tengu deck cuz I never got to fully explore the deck when I was younger. And some of the plays, if uncontested, can wipe the floor with both those decks between all the possible answers in Dragunity. A singular normal Summon of Dux can out a Nat Beast if you go into Orient Dragon. Add Ravine and REDMD into the mix and you can still extend and play more after dealing with a floodgate style card. We just need more playtesting in the format to really break out a wider picture of "What's good?"
Wait… that has to be a photo shop photo. The Yusei duel disk was never released in the U.S.
They were Japan only.
A ton of great points. Tengu is such a fantastic format!
I have a tier SS++$$ 00 tengu format deck I’ll be dropping at locals time wizard in two weeks and it’s already undefeated in my head and totally original. Stay tuned folks
You mentioned the point and disagree with it but essentially yes: The historical meta had an unmatched test pool. Exactly how many players are actively playing the format right now? Playing a local level event 1000 times with roughly the same handful of people does not alter tiers.
Especially this format which I personally deem the best in the game's history (I've played since 2002) where the difference between meta and non-meta is small enough to give a ton of decks a real fighting chance and this makes it harder to distinguish between a better tiered deck or a better player.
I think it is fine to not truly know if X deck is strictly better than Y deck in a tier list set in stone. There's a lot of incompatibles to compare and match-ups that shake off data as some might find themselves in a rock/paper/scissors relationship with each other, and people adjust things to counter that and shift representation or people get their own pet decks which they absolutely insist on using and eventually will be topping something once in a while.
Bro you want this forced narrative to be true so bad you fall into your own illusory truth effect. Plants and Agents will always be a strong tier 1 deck in this format (the fact your thumbnail even tells people to stop playing those decks is ridiculous) and if this format ever becomes sweaty enough to the point of either goat or Edison I believe Plants and Agents will still continue to be the most played decks and I don’t even believe those are the only tier 1 decks in the format.
It’s also convenient you cherry pick one event to try and push this when the opposite can be done showing that tengu and agents have steamrolled top cuts. It would be a stronger claim if you showed more than just one example instead of well let’s just go by the most recent event.
Your tier list is also counterintuitive. If someone looking to get into this format sees the tier list you have in this video and they hear you say to join the discord most decks you have in your “tier 1 - 1.5” are labeled as either rogue or table 500 in the discord which just leads to discouragement and confusion.
This video in no way claims tengu plants and agents are weak decks or not tier 1. In fact, if you watch the whole video, I mentioned that people will still likely play the decks regardless of what I say, and its targeted to those wanting to pursue new or different decks. This isnt cherrypicking. There are multiple events that demonstrate this concept. The biggest point I was making is if a tournament saturated with the 2 decks had 1 or few of them make it out of top 8, then it logically would not make sense to make a claim that plants and agents are significantly better than everything else they are simply equal or close. Even in a single one off event that outcome with those ratios should be impossible if they are "the best." This is demonstrating a simple concept from a recent event. I cover every top cut on my channel and plenty of others reflect this as well. If the single example proves my point, then by adding more, I'm only adding redundancy, extending the video, and wasting my viewers' time. I also have been transparent that I fundamentally disagree with the tier list in the tengu plant discord in both my videos and in the discord itself, but it's not my server. Lastly, the thumbnail is a teaser to the theme of the video, not an actual demand of my viewers to stop playing the decks.
I played this format extensively. There were 3 ycs with 1000's of people and the top cut had mostly like 25 tengu plant decks. And also tengu is a hard af deck to play correctly. Thays why great players topped back to back. Fuck billy brake won 2 with the same deck. I will say catsith chaos is another good one. But results alone u cant say its not the best WITH a great player behind it.
I would argue that good historical players had better average game knowledge and likely could top with anything. Also, plants is not really complex. Maybe for the time. There's a reason those same historical players don't see as much success in modern time wizard tournaments. It's because the gap has relatively closed. Most people understand the complexities of retro yugioh now. The point is you can take billy brake on plants and throw him in a modern tengu tournament and I would in no way guarantee that he would even top. I think the biggest factor would be matchups/bracket luck and overall luck of the draw. Is he capable? Absolutely. Was he ahead of the game in 2011? Also yes. But is he miles above modern tengu players? Definitely not.
At the part with the tier list, it just depends on how you define it; it’s semantics. I would personally only put 4 decks in tier 1, 0 in tier 0, and most of the decks you have in tier 1 I’d put in tier 2. My tier 1 would be defined as likely to win and my tier 2 would be likely to top. Of course anything can do well, but that doesn’t mean it’s tier 1, but it does if you define it as “could win” instead of “likely to”.
Yes, but that's where it's tough because of my draw the line example. It's unclear how these decks stack up and most of it is tournament representation. For example , there was a Italy tournament with a lot of catsith decks represented and catsith dominated top cut. That to me, demonstrates a very close meta in which no deck is definitively better than the other. Realistically, most decks in tengu have a near 50% w/r builds, and players define those results. And optimization can improve those w/rs but that optimization is tough if everyone blanket statement accepts that plants and agents are "the best."
Brb changing patreon name to Ajent Tier 0
ha ha ha
"I see people wasting veiler on venus and earth"
I feel thats a product of modern players coming to 2011 thinking we look for choke points and thinking thats what builds tempo. They think "hitting this stops their turn so my turn will run it over and the games done." Because thats how the games played now. They dont think about what the board state will be turn 5,8,10+ and think maybe i should let that go through cuz i need this for X.
Which isnt bad, its all about learning and what makes time wizard fun. And you cant stop me from playing the decks i loved back in 2011 :^) [Agent and SS]
Lol never stop playing what you love
@@tcgrewind Whenever I try to sell people on Tengu Plant format. I always say Tengu plant and Agents are good entry level decks to come in and learn the format. Once you play a tournament or 2, you can start looking at other archetypes you've been seeing and experiment. Kinda like how if I try to get people to play edison I say "try dandywarrior, it's fun and simple to pilot. But flexible."
@DynamiteDominique yea that's respectable advice
Pant & Ajent 😂😂
tengu plant and agents aren't the only strong decks,it's true. Also GK, Heroes and Catsith decks are quite strong. Honestly the problem with Tengu isn't that tengu plant and agent are strong but there are too many unfunny things like every decks smashing in Rai-oh that prevents lots of decks from playing, gravekeepers having necrovalley,royal tribute and descendant + recruiter and rite of spirit. I'd say that compared to Edison there are more broken things and non-games, which is why i don't see Tengu ever surpassing Edison. The gap between t1 and other decks is larger in Tengu than in Edison.
edison has infinitely more cards with 0 - minimal counterplay. Cold wave, trunade, honest, kalut, royal oppression (has 1 mst), caius/ monarchs are infinitely more broken without veiler. Every single card in tengu plant format has counterplay. And the counterplay is generic.
@@tcgrewind generic counterplay to royal tribute? Also the argument "it has counterplay" is a bit weak considering that also in modern everything has a counterplay,but this doesn't solve things. The key point is that edison is a slow formater format,that's why there's lots of diff decks topping in very large tournaments. When i started edison i didn't like it,but the more i played the more i liked it and i changed my mind about it. What happened with Tengu Plant was the contrary: i started as an enthusiast but then i had to change my mind in a negative way.
@jiara5219 turn 1 royal tribute is a 1 deck play that occurs less than 20% of the time. And going second vs many decks it loses a ton of value. But there is technically counter play to royal tribute. You can herald of green light it many agent decks side that in now. Regardless it's such a non factor. Modern may have counterplay but the massive difference is the generic couterplay. Most decks already run the key counterplay tools. Like veiler, mst, lance, debunk, warnings ect. Edison got large because it grew in popularity over covid and saw massive promotion from larger content creators saying it's "the best." It is strictly worse than tengu in evert capacity. Less decks, worse gameplay, more oppressive cards. That being said while everything I stated is true, it's still technically a matter of opinion and preference.
@@tcgrewind green light isn't a card that u can side in non-fairy decks. There's still Gemini Imps to side but even there the problem with RT is that you either see the out in time or you're gonna suffer. You can win after RT sacked u 3 monsters,but its a lot harder and tilting. Edison worse gameplay? sure bro. Less decks? Cardpool is smaller but cardpool alone doesn't make the meta more diverse. The meta actually become smaller when you fear bringing an heavy-monster deck due to RT existing or trap heavy decks gets fucked by royal decree.
@jiara5219 go peep my "debunking tengu plant propaganda vid." It covers all these topics and demonstrates how irrelevant royal tribute is. Technically, royal tribute also exists in edison lol. But even between the 2 there are more counterplay tools to rt in tengu than in edison. And a year's worth of more cards, generic counter play, increase in generic consistency cards along side a non opressive meta are all massive contributors to tengu being infinitely more diverse. Tengu is the most diverse format in history and no amount of edison copium can disprove that. Again all this is demonstrated in my video.
I think the only people who understand the variety of the format are players that have played through it. Seeing all these decks reminds me of what was in my locals during that time period. Not everyone was always able to afford "the top decks", other stuff handled their own too
Totally agree, Plants and Agents on top!
W8 a sec ...
I use to play agents during druler format and wanted to try this format just to play agents again guess I'll pass :/
Agents are still strong in the format dont get me wrong this video is to try to combat the concept people push of plants and agents being the only good decks.
Agents is one of the best decks in the format.
@@CocTheElf One of the reasons I've stopped playing as much modern and starting getting back into old formats is all the shaming people seem to engage in when it comes to deck choices whether that be casuals talking down people playing meta or meta players being elitist's towards casuals. This mentality seems to be seeping into alternate formats now I guess its just a problem that is unavoidable lol
@@MrFlackle people will have an strong opinion anyway, the wants to show that they are other good decks. That the great thing about this format Plants and Agents are the best decks but since the power gap is so low you have so many strong contenders
If you wanna go for Agents try out Gallis or the other Mash variants they are super fun
Finally, someone who tells the truth
still jurracs sucks tbh
Ayo!? Consistently played by 1 guy with a couple good tournament runs. Slept on and underrepresented.
I think writing off a deck you don't understand is unfair. If someone else can see success with it and you can not, then it would be more probable you have a lack of understanding on how the deck functions then that it "sucks." Not tryna put you on blast. It's totally fine it's a common mindset. But it is something to challenge yourself.
I think there is a misunderstanding here. I understand the deck, it still sucks.
@@tcgrewind
@@karl-hainzkrauterkramer3971 lol fair enough you are entitled to your opinion.
thx man, thought people would hate me or assume i have less knowledge about the deck just because my opinion differs. Glad it is not the case.@@tcgrewind
Couldn’t agree more 🫶🏻 thank you Tyler for what you do for the tengu plant community
Agents best deck