• Always play 60 cards. If your deck has more good cards, it makes it a better deck. • Play as many one-of outs as possible. If you play 3 of "the best" hand traps like a meta sheep, you'll miss the chance to resolve Witch's Strike. • Never review your losses. Only losers dwell on their mistakes. The reason why you lost won't matter if you just win every game. • BLING OUT. Everyone knows you're more likely to draw a better hand if your cards are shinier, but most forget that the psychological damage you cause on your opponent by using an ultra expensive deck can win you games. • Similarly, use mats, sleeves, and field centers with lewd imagery. You may get free wins from people who don't want to duel you because they are uncomfortable. Being aroused also projects a dominant vibe, lowering their confidence. • Do not shower or groom before a week before a tournament. Your body odor is always worse for others, which can throw them off their game. • When they use an expensive card, ask to read it and proceed to bend it, so they are discouraged from using it again, fearing you might damage it when requesting to re-read. • Retain semen.
Remember to always bring a token type belonging to a meta deck that you're not playing. "Oh, you thought I was playing Sword soul, too bad dimensional barrier does nothing to GREN MAJU. Just don't admit that you did it for this exact reason.
i've found that not showering for a month before the tournament is actually more efficient, as sometimes your intense odor might just kill your opponent outright. saves you considerable time!
There's so many things that makes 60 cards a perfectly viable thing to do. Look at MTG with their no card limit bullshit. 120+ card decks and you still lose cuz they always find what they want via their infinite pull of search and stun cards. Or better yet, the jokesters responsible for the 40-60 card deck limit in the first place. I don't know if they ever won with that 7 foot long deck, but man was that funny. Plus it makes it harder for players to ruin your deck by forcefully removing cards from or or banishing them constantly. I hadn't won against a Kashtira deck that tried this yet, but I sure as hell gave them a hard time beating me and my fur hire or dragon maid decks because of it. xD
5:00 - for anyone who struggles with this, it might help if you remember one play Joshua Schmidt made in last year's Master Duel Worlds. He put a Naturia monster on board for no particular reason (the game was essentially won either way), then realized that it was the wrong play (iirc because it gave his opponent a Zeus line), so responded by tributing it to its own effect to special summon from deck, and used his own Ash Blossom on that effect to prevent it from creating the same problem. Throwing away Ash to stop a problem you created for yourself is certainly worse than missing the first opportunity to droll, and is probably worse than the vast majority of correctable misplays that people make. One of the Worlds winners made that mistake, and he corrected it. He knew better than to let pride get in the way of making the now-optimal play.
Add-on tip: If you misplay, don't continue to misplay because you don't want to show you misplayed. Yesterday on Master Duel I opened Air Lifter and 4 hand traps. I thought Air Lifter was Preventer and hit End Phase. My next Draw Phase I drew Bonfire. I then had Air Lifter and Bonfire, I of course used both. I am not going to hide one or the other because I would've used the card I had first turn to start combos.
@@supermonkeyqwerty Josh provided commentary on his games after the fact, and he covered that play at this timestamp in this video: ruclips.net/video/NOfQsWJYTwE/видео.htmlsi=WMf5Y-4P4wjaqGSf&t=6093. My words were overwrought for the sake of the story, and for the sake of hopefully helping it sink into peoples' minds. That said, I do still find the situation funny, so I hope you enjoy it.
For anyone who follows the above link, the appropriate ending timestamp is 1:44:30. I think all the commentary on that play is worth hearing, either because it's funny or useful.
@@Lorens4444 Well... yeah. One immediately gives you the upper hand by giving you more one more faculty, the other one removes a faculty from you. In a game where your main resources are the cards themselves and whether or not you can use them, no cost is too great for one more card.
plotwist, you buy tenpai, a deck that can't be interacted woth in 2 phases then otk. The only way for your opponent to play it better is draw ogre.... XD i love it that so many skills are invalidated by braindead decks konami prints.
I do think as Joshua Schmidt once said though that there's an important element to being able to occasionally tell when you DID get sacked/get unlucky, though. That is to say, if you made a choice A that was wrong, because your opponent had card X, doesn't always mean that making choice A is statistically bad - sometimes you're choosing between choice A that's bad if op has exactly X and choice B which is bad in every situation except if op has X. Sometimes you really do get sacked by OP drawing the hand that makes more than your deck can meaningfully play around. It's a really important part of analyzing a situation to occasionally be able to think about it and then say "I really did do the right play given the knowledge I had", and to not immediately decide your deck is just bad or your play pattern was obviously wrong just because you lost a game or two. As a simple example, take setting every trap card in your trap deck turn 1 and then losing to Feather Duster - you're choosing between getting blown out by one or two cards op won't always find, versus limiting your ability to play the game or interact with an opponent in a game where you were already lucky enough to get to go first with a trap deck. That sort of thing.
Tip #1: Know the difference between Rouge and Rogue. One is a cosmetic, the other is a kind of deck that is fun, not a strong as the meta decks, but has the capacity to beat them sometimes, specially in the right hands. Definitely not recommended if you are new to the game (give yourself a chance to learn) but great if you want a challenge.
@@weckar I certainly would, learning how different decks work and how to beat them is much easier when you start out on an even playing field. Once you're comfortable its a lot easier to switch around strategies of course though.
@@weckar yes, to know your enemy you have to know what they are doing. There's difference between just seeing how the deck being played and actually playing the deck itself after all
My advice would be to learn how to play a control deck, not Yu-Gi-Oh's combo-control hybrid you see with most decks but a proper Control deck as it would be seen in other card games. My friends brought me back to YGO when Master Duel came out, the last time I had played the game was like early season 1 gx era. Needless to say, I had *a lot* to learn. The deck I picked up to relearn how to play the game was Sky Strikers, and while in the beginning it was extremely painful, it made me a way better player as a result. A true control deck requires you not just to know and understand your own cards, but also your opponent's. You don't really have flow charts you can rely on, instead you have to play out based on what your opponent is doing. Developing that skill to adapt is extremely important.
There’s so much freelo in just knowing the basic grind game. Only way I made it out of silver as a magic player who hasn’t touched yugioh in over a decade.
On top of that, Striker is really good at forcing you to learn discernment. Not everything the opponent does demands an answer, and when every interaction you have is single use, you are forced to consider which plays are actually worth dealing with.
i was gonna say mid-range decks are the way to go as well. I picked up thunder dragon and I actually saw myself improve immensely. you have the simple resource loop that recycles td fusion. The fact that each of the thundra cards you only get 1 of of the two effects each turn so you do have to do some planning on not only your own turn but the opponents turn due to the protection effects of of both collosus and titan. Although i guess thundra is a bit closer to control now considering mid-range decks are becoming more combo- heavy.
The tip about playing to your outs is one that I learned very early in YGO and MTG. I remember being at a local and someone was malding over their loss and their teammate said something along the lines of "Why would you make the play that loses if they have this card? You can't beat that card even in the best case scenarios." He then went onto explain that there were 3 scenarios. If your opponent has the card that beats you then you lose. If you play around that card you don't have a powerful enough board to counteract what your opponent can do and you lose. The only way you win in this scenario is playing assuming they don't have the card and making the best board you can. There are so many times where I look at a board state in MTG and ask myself "how do I actually win in this board state?" and if that means I start making very aggressive pushes or walling up entirely then I play to that outcome. More often than not thats how I turn the corner in a game and win. And if I played to that and still lost then I know I did everything I could to play to win.
It's one of those things that can be frustrating watching some of Cimoo's series because he'll consistently play cards in such a way where he avoids a play that instantly loses if they have say, torrential, but kind of ignores that he still loses if they have it and he stalls barring some exceptionally luck draws (and the opponent being unlucky and not drawing the outs to those outs in the time you're stalling too). If you lose either way if they have it, better to risk losing instantly and have a chance of winning if they don't have it than to stall and lose anyways even if they didn't have it
@@Gridiron992 exactly. If you try to play around it and they never had it in the first place youre just kneecapping yourself. Where as if they have it then you probably weren't going to win anyway if its that backbreaking. It might seem counter intuitive to play assuming they don't have the interaction but you have to play against the opponent who is actually in front of you not the one in your head.
@@AzureAetherXx Yeah, had to learn this too. My own mindset is play around things if possible IF I can still win the game. So something like Safe Play + Follow Up over getting blown out by going for max combo. But there are sometimes where you kind of have to ball and say "Show it to me" because Losing after playing around it, and Losing because you didn't is the same end result, only you can psyche yourself out in the former while they actually have to have it in the latter.
A "safe" play which near-certainly loses the game slowly is not a safe play at all. It is incredibly risky, as indicated by the win chance after making it. A "risky" play which has a decent chance of letting you win later but otherwise causes you to lose quickly is far safer in reality.
Coming from the fighting game community, it's funny how many of these translate 1-to-1 with fighting games. Prioritize fundamental skills over combo execution or niche tech, play decks/characters outside your comfort zone to develop a broader understanding of the game, mix up your options to prevent your opponent from clocking your gameplan, REVIEW YOUR LOSSES (extremely important), learn how to lab effectively instead of just grinding games, learn how to take calculated risks instead of playing predictably safe, yet do so in a way that is CONSISTENT rather than constantly swinging for the fences. Yu-Gi-Oh really is just the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 of card games, in the best of ways.
Most of this is echoed in one way or another in every competitive game that exists. They're essential parts of getting good at things, whatever those things are
I grind games to learn even in fighting games lol 😅 labbing makes me learn easier but it's not as fun as smashing my head against a brick wall. Don't mind losing much thankfully, I'd have quit both games so fast otherwise
That example of safe plays vs potentially advantageous plays brought me so back. Barronne is one of those cards i would always see people treat as this omnipotent god that made them set everything pass, and everyone who ended on a baronne always felt like they had already won. So i make them use the negates and then destroy their core cards, most of the time outing baronne in the process and ending on basically nothing on board but leaving them significantly behind on card advantage, instant scoop. You might have negates and a winning position, but if you dont use those advantages well you might as well not have them.
Unironically when I got back into YGO because of MD (haven’t played since Synchro era) reading what cards did helped immensely and embarrassingly enough there was a short time when I started MD and didn’t give a shit about reading what did things lmao got tired of getting upset because of “out of nowhere” bullshit kept happening and surprise, I stopped getting surprised when I started to read lmao
One of the biggest things I learned that really helped me was card advantage. I know it seems obvious, but as someone who grew up only ever playing at a casual level it instantly increased my skill level by multiples when I started exercising maximizing my card advantage. “Noo I can’t use my big attack monster as material for an extra deck monster with way less attack points that just searches, I’ll lose all those attack points. Wait, if I do my end board can look like this?!”
Unironically the most important lesson to even learn to start playing Yugioh is admiting your deck sucks, I have seen SOOOOO MANY posts on r/masterduels and facebook groups where is it just a rando with 2004-esque deck going "oh modern yugioh so hard because my non-functioning deck lost against meta" when their decks will lose to even Dark Magician of all things.
Unironically I think some people push this too far and even consider decks like Galaxy Eye to be bad in Master Duel environment even though it can reach Master 1 just fine.
@@fnfgammer2014i think its more about how those decks are built and played than the archetypes in themselves i am in a huge MD group on fb and you'll see people cry about it all the time and refuse help
Brother the reviewing your losses still hit home today. Have the time whenever I lose a game I instantly know how I lost and I try to avoid situations like that in the future. About a year ago, I was learning how to play ABC dragon Buster, and one of my friends was willing to teach me. So when I activated a monster effect during their main phase, they triple tacked me into oblivion. Game 3 I waited for them to go into the battle phase and then instantly activated ABC’s they scooped on the spot and I won the match. It sucks to lose, yeah, but if you can grow from it, then it makes the victories that much better.
mannnn, those first times getting bodied by an avoidable Triple Tac, Lightning Storm cuz you didn't summon big ATK monsters in DEF or played in the imperm or anima columns will haunt you. Shit we learn from
The most important thing in my improving as a player was just dueling against good players. The locals I used to go to all the time before I moved was full of people that would go to every ycs, half of them were judges, and they played meta even at locals. While it was frustrating at times I didn't realize until after I moved and went to a new locals (where the weekend of a ycs there was still 3/4 of the regulars, there was only one judge, and no one has been on snake eye for the past month) that it made me a much better player. If you duel against better players they force you to play better than the guy who insists you're only playing a deck correctly if you don't use out of archetype cards.
"Fuck it, make them have it." Is one of the key skills in Yugioh and in general card games. Sure, if you're generally packing a lot of outs and you aren't under pressure, you can wait, but let's say they have the out and you have very few ways to get around it... That shit isn't getting any better for you. Make them have it. And if you know they have it learn the lines of play to bait them to misplaying because YOU might know what the interrupt point on your combo line is, but as a man who has played Isolde I can guarantee you they have NO idea what the right target is.
What I learned is: It truly doesn't matter how many interactions you have, not everything is worth interacting with. If your opponent actiavates ROTA for example and you have ash, don't ash it. They could already have what they need and are just baiting. This has 3 major benefits. It saves the bigger interactions from baits, it makes each disruption much more effective, and it lets you save on resources if the game goes long. Because when you are on top deck v top deck, the one that has a monster on field wins. A good way to develop the ability to measure the importance of interactions is to play Sky Striker. Every single card you have is a limited resource you won't get back until next turn, maybe even ever, so you will be forced to carefully consider when to use interactions.
I largely agree but want to note its a double edged sword cuz you gotta know the matchup. I've done this to random decks at times only to realize I've allowed them to search the card that lets them play through disruptions/extend past my interactions 😬. There are also decks where leading with a search is a sign of weakness, like Stratos was in Heros a few years ago
@@antonbrown17 to give another example with hero i think ashing a hero lives is the correct choice because stratos is not a once per turn effect and it is a special summon from deck so it gives them bodies to play with, but then a hero lives is also not once per turn so since they are on an empty field they can activate a second copy and now i don't know what the fuck to do.
My advice (even if it may not be one to get better) is simply to try things out, whether out of curiosity or for fun. Mainly because some random experiences may end up providing very interesting information that could be game-winning. For instance, you might realize your opponent is doing something actually illegal because you once tried the same thing, or you may discover things like being able to declare Nibiru and then discard it with a lab furniture, and the effect would still resolve. Personally, I sometimes almost throw games simply because I'm curious about an interaction and how it would turn out.
A lot of people in the thread said this, but yeah, my moment when I realized I could play better is when I picked up a second deck. I used to JUST play hero and hero variants, but as soon as I started playing Salamangreat the world opened up to me. Now I play like 10 different decks, from Drytron to Floo to purrely
God, absolutely this. Every deck feels so oppressive against you until you play them, but as soon as you try them out you start noticing their flaws immediately. Even just practicing bread and butter combos for random decks in the format gives such a good insight into how other people will make plays, what to do to beat them, and where to interrupt them. Its also really hard to understand how someone is outplaying you if you don't know what a deck does.
One for MD: Take your time! You have 300 seconds in a matchup, if playing against something with a lot of interaction (Lab going second, snake eyes, rescue ace pure/snake eyes combo) take a moment when you have priority. I’m guilty or going quickly to not appear impolite. It helps to think out lines/combos/chokepoints.
What helped me improve at the game was often teaching other people how to play the game. I learned Traptrix combos and lines in order to teach someone else, picked it up a lot quicker than other decks I played, and realized that the core strategy just clicked with my playstyle, to the point of being able to innovate with the build and lines and make the deck malleable (understanding its parts and being able to get where I want to with what I draw and despite disruption).
to Paraphrase something Skarlon said in the Twitter thread: "If you're trying to be competitive, winning is more important than both of you having fun" is a shockingly hard piece of advice to beat into your own head but is self-explanatory if you think about it for a few minutes
As someone who has played this game for 10+ years, I feel like I've only just recently started to take the game seriously. I attended my first YCS last year in London (didn't top, but didn't do nearly as bad I thought I would - likely could have done even better had I not made two key mistakes in two different rounds), and this year I've been making an earnest effort to keep on top of trends in the metagame, rather than just running whatever in the side and hoping for the best.
The 2 things that got me a lot better funny first was sitting with me deck alone and reading over every single interaction I could think of for the future, and taking a break after many years of playing so I could think more on my wins and loses. So maybe just chill out and practice more at home alone. Grinding constantly doesn't help you out all the time and can make the game boring and unfun as it changes and you may be missing out on certain card interactions you've never seen before
I'm going to shout-out a tip from Pat Gill's "How to get into fighting games". Pick a deck that interests you. Yes, the power level difference between top-tiers and bottom tiers is way bigger in Yu-Gi-Oh. But if you aren't enjoying your deck AND you aren't winning your drive to improve will wither away. If playing Blue-Eyes keeps you wanting to improve, play it!
Jessie's concept of don't fixate on Synergy: I did this in Hearthstone earlier tonight. Made a board of small mechs that could revive themselves a dozen times, got Divine Shield for doing so, and essentially gave me a million bodies. It came together very well - I could have 44 creatures in a turn from a board of 7. And they could not win a fucking game. Why? Because I was so focused on putting out this conga line of assholes that I ignored how to win. A Card with 120 Health that hit for 4s beat me.
Sometimes they have it. It's the nature of games with this much varience. Tilting and getting salty because the unlucky thing happened helps no one but your opponent. Shrugging it off avoids that at minimum, and can probably help beyond it.
If you don't have a partner to reliably test with and you are stuck playing edopro/DB/master duel. Doing those "test hands on DB solo mode" is fine to teach you about your deck and your plays. Just make sure to consider when you might be interrupted and play some hands as if you were interrupted at the worst possible point. Some of the best videos i've seen don't just show off like 1-2 card combos against nothing but also against droll, nib, imperm, ash, or a combination of hand traps and show how (if at all) you can keep going.
Saving this for future reference. I’ve been trying to implement and pass on many of these tips, but they’re things I need to hear from time to time myself. Also, I’ve personally implemented a die into my solo play testing. Once I get the basic proof of concept for a deck working, I start rolling a die for each effect to simulate opponent interruption. It’s admittedly led to some impossible scenarios (ex: 6-7 negates while going first), but it’s forced me to get creative and learn how to recognize lines that let me play around or through certain outs, or to recognize when I just don’t have the out to a board.
If you want to learn to get good with interactions and board breakers, learn a Control deck focused on disruption/removal, which will often have those kinds of things baked into its game plan. If you want to get good with Control decks, learn the most common plays from every other deck you might see in a given format, as your deck's strength relies on exploiting their weaknesses. If you want to learn the most commonly played cards/options, you're going to want to play against them a lot. It all comes down to practice in the end. It's not surprising a lot of Control decks have you minusing before you start turboing out those pluses, since you're probably going to have to similarly take on a number of losses to understand the keys to winning against the trickiest opponents.
I cannot understate just how right Dire is (common Dire W). When I first started to play this game, I only ever played Madolche. Of course, I still love the deck, but playing other decks has taught me what forms of interaction is good against other decks (and learning to use certain interactions, even if it would be normally bad to use it), when I should use certain hand traps (instead of just Ashing a searcher that could so easily be bait or unimportant), and what type of information should be concealed or revealed. There are definitely other things I learned from playing with other decks, but these are some of the biggest examples. Anyways, chain link 1 Drident, chain link 2 ghost mourner for game?
Honestly, the best way to get better is to enjoy playing the game. If you’re not enjoying yourself, and you are getting frustrated, this will make thinking about it harder. Some frustration is okay, I’m talking about being very upset, not mildly annoyed.
Even "mildly annoyed" can build to tilt given time. It's important to manage one's emotions when they are mild, precisely because they will be a problem if allowed to grow.
@@GunnarWahl Yours is a better way of phrasing it, I think. It's a difficult skill to learn, and learning to stop being tilted when one is, is harder yet, but both are invaluable. Tilt is one of the _worst_ things for one's play.
Small one I remember trying to get used to while playing that works for other card games; this is a puzzle game. You make your deck to do a thing, the end board is the finished puzzle. Each piece does something to finish the puzzle, "this goes here, this does this", and you need to try and finish your puzzle while your opponent is trying to eat your pieces. If you don't know how to make your puzzle, or your puzzle puts two pieces together and calls it a day, there's a big chance you're not gonna win. So practice your deck, learn what goes where, swap out pieces that don't fit, and try to streamline your moves and responses so turns aren't 10 minutes of "ums" and "uhs".
Uh... no? I mean, maybe nowadays, but that's not how you should think about it. You should be focusing on the resources that are immediately available to you instead of an idealized end board you might not reach. Focus on what you can do right now and how that can interact with your opponent.
It’s amazing how many overlook this fact considering the source material for this game is about a person solving unwinnable puzzles with barely any info beforehand and a toolset that does not seem like it can solve said puzzle
@@lunk642 not an idealized end board, but "my deck does this". Your deck does a thing, it's what you built it to do, an end result in mind. You put these cards together for a reason, why? Do you burn, do you stall, do you mill, what does it do? Interaction comes once you know what you can do. "Okay, I know how my deck wants to play now, so what can counter this?" "If my opponent does this, do I have a way to counter it?" That's what I mean, you built the deck to do a thing. You don't build a deck off of "I'll wait and see what my opponent does", that's added in to the rest of the deck that wants to do the thing you built it for. You built your deck to win. How can it win? What do you do to win? This piece goes here, this does this, these are for this, this piece doesn't fit right so I'll swap it for this one. I said "end board", I was thinking end of game, not end of turn, that is my bad for not clarifying.
@@Kwevin6659 Oh, I see. That's a really good philosophy during deck building, but by the time the game starts, you shouldn't be thinking about what you SHOULD be doing and only be thinking about what you CAN do. A lot of the time it's optimal to make a risky and improvised play way outside of your original game plan in order to cripple your opponent or win outright. Thinking too much about what your deck should be doing can limit your creativity and make you miss those options.
Whenever I've gotten into any card game and have asked the top players around the card shop to teach me to become a competitive player, the lesson they teach has always been, "Copy the top competitive deck and play it." I feel like that is idiotic. Having a good deck doesn't mean you know competitive play. In fact, there needs to have been people who know how to play competitive first in order for said top competitive deck to have been built in the first place and not the other way around.
I'll go ahead and say to try deckbuilding from scratch. Netdecking has it's place, but building decks myself gave me an infinitely deeper insight over time and really imprived my general knowledge base. It's a pretty undervalued skill in yugioh, but I think it's well worth the time and effort
My advice is, for an early duelist or one getting back into the game after a long time, even if you lose, you can gain some confidence and appreciation for yourself and your deck if you dwell on what you did right than what you did wrong. If you dwell on your misplays and how it caused you to lose, too much, it will bring your mood down and cause you to wonder if you were ever a good player, but if you focus on how you played well, especially if you made some killer moves that frustrates your opponent for a while, you can get it in your head that yes, it is possible for you to be good at the game, and from there, you can focus on how to get better at it.
Another bit of good advice that my roommate and I occasionally do (but need to do more often): if you want to play a particular deck, be sure to practice playing against it. If you play against your deck, you can figure out what the chokepoints are in the deck, what strategies would likely be interacted with and stopped, and you can build up a better strategy for getting around those.
1:38 yeah, i honestly agree. you need to know when to surrender, but always keep playing until you can't see any plays. i was playing against meta snake eyes with the kash deck i'm running for fun. they got most my first turn field out and i was fully ready to forfeit until i looked through what i could do on my turn. i managed to get out a big eyes, steal the flam from their field and managed to fully re set my board back the way it was while using the flam to break down their board. always keep playing what you can, but there are those times where you cant do anything and that is when you surrender.
With Jesse’s point what immediately comes to mind is how a lot of people who play VS will exclude certain hand traps because they don’t line up with the VS attributes. Cutting Nib because its light makes your deck actively worse if it’s a format where Nib is good. Same goes with auto including Bystials because the attributes line up, even though you don’t have any impactful targets in SE, 0 targets in Tenpai, and Yubel outright doesn’t care if its stuff gets banished.
What I love about this video is that, if you take away the children trading card game, a lot of the advice actually applies to real life scenarios as well. In regards to planning ahead, expanding and honing your talents, and finding out why things you failed at did not work. It’s such an important life skill, and I think it’s great that these silly card games can help us develop real life problem-solving skills.
That Spicy tech one from discord reminds me of an interaction that happened in ours, a former player of the deck posted a profile taht basically went AGAINST what has been established in order to cater to the "plan" of the deck. Like not using ANY of the new techs, old interactions like using the search to make your negate live, and even calling cards that are ESSENTIAL for board building useless Lesson of the story? Make sure who ever your copying the deck from actually does have good points in regards to how the deck is by looking at the deck from the POV of the players and how they COULD be played instead of copying the first famous person online
similarly, im in FB groups for 3 underrepresented decks that somehow get indirectly worse each banlist(Zombie, Speedroid and Swordsoul) and every other day someone posts a profile with new "spicy" techs that just make the deck worse. It's funny to see
I got back into yugioh at the start of the lockdown with Duel Links and the thing that helped the most was watching the high tier replays. I carried that trend to Master Duel and it feels like something people gloss over. Seeing how someone with a lot more knowledge of the game goes through lines, how they play out of being interrupted, alternate lines that you didn't realize will drastically help your game. I watched Pak play swordsoul on MD while it was meta and seeing him go into Berserker of the Tenyi to turn it into a monk so that he would have a noneffect monster on board was genius and is now a play that I will never forget. The top players can give such an amazing road map on how to get better and what to be thinking of in different situations. The other thing I found that really helps are guides. Being able to get a breakdown that goes more into why you should play certain cards, the value of them at different quantities, alternate options for different metas, what are the flex spots and what type of interactions all help you learn how to play with and against these decks/cards. For a new player, building a deck can be daunting, there are an insane amount of cards that work together in specific ways. Breaking into that is challenging. I know people don't like netdecking since the building is a skill, but it is a skill cultivated over time and guides help shorten that learning time since it changes it from copying to understanding. MDM has started adding them and I found it great when making my infernoble deck (happy accident of pulling a lot of them when I was going for snake eyes and really had no clue how to play them), I just would love to see more of them. If you only ever focus on your game and don't step back to see how others play, you won't improve as fast or as much.
A lot of these are valuable for sure. A lot of it comes down to focus, your ability to analyze, then learn and just overall experience. I started going to locals around November of 2023, after a personal "training" arc for about 3 years. I"m still learning and improving, but I particularly made the most strides since going to locals and specifically after have a single casual day and losing 6 straight matches to someone playing Exosister. It was humbling, it made me want to quit, but I pressed forward, tinkered with my builds, gave a lot of thought to how to play, started weighing the strengths and weaknesses of cards I was playing. I still get my butt whooped often enough, but i have won a couple times since.
I'd say that playing handtraps at the right time is an important skills, firing off ash at the first possible interaction isnt always the best play. You have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run
5:01 This rings so true to me. I'm already very self-critical and, perhaps in part through osmosis through other YGO players, am highly critical of my opponent's plays. My worst fear is playing against *myself* who would point out my flaws. I didn't realize the opponent would Link Summon twice and had Maxx C this whole time? Stop trying to save face when you can go for maybe one draw if you use it now.
7:20 At locals yesterday I fucking lost to a Labrynth player setting 4 revealing heavenly prison and passing. What could I have done? Nothing but maybe play evenly... in Tenpai. Sometimes you literally cannot win. His 4 set were Karma Cannon, D Barrier, Big Welcome, and Welcome. I was on Tenpai and it was game 3 so he knew. :)
A lot of these apply to other games as well. MOBA's game sense (timings, cooldowns and map presence) can relate to knowing your opponents deck and item builds and playstyle most likely correlate with what extra deck and version of deck is being used. In fighting games, knowing what your character can do and what combos where (as in depending on the distance between the two players and where on the screen you both are), learning defence and how to open up a person is essential in higher level play just like in ygo. Where is the chokepoint in combos for both games? How do you bait a move and capitalise on it? Honestly amazing advice all around which I'm kind of surprised about. My advice is probably to learn other games as well since it gives you an idea of how you usually play and expand on that. Sometimes when you're only playing 1 game, you stop learning different playstyles (me with Hades with the bow and the shield)
I love watching these kinds of videos as a mega casual. Like yes, absolutely, a floodgate getting flipped at high level does have the chance to do nothing, and to improve you absolutely need yo play it out... But god DAMN of they arent still the most annoying things in the fucking world, especially when you're like me and like playing fun decks, not good ones.
One thing that has helped me a lot is playing decks that give my main trouble, some of the meta decks, or deck I just don't like playing against. It help me learn the choke points and what plays will and won't work against each deck.
I really agree with the individual who said learn to play out the game even if it seems unwinnable. I've recently been teaching my team not to scoop too early. I've won games that I had no business taking going second with no disruptions against full combo and a poor hand. It's always possible. You haven't lost until the game is over
There is value in knowing when you truly have lost before you play out your hand, but you won't ever learn to know that if you don't play out many hands into every imaginable endboard first. If you haven't done that, you probably assume games are unwinnable far more often than they are. Besides, playing into tough boards can help you improve at other skills in the meantime.
I always do that saying "what could I have done?". The difference is I already have thought of ever way possible to play. Most of the time they have multiple omni negates and if I didn't draw the out to deal with everything I either just let them win or surrender. Not like I don't try though. I have tried to play through two omni negates and a spell/trap negate. If you get lucky to get pass everything you need a one card starter to play the game. I do agree knowing how to win is key but the most important thing is knowing how every card works. Knowing a cards effect, knowing what hand traps maybe in their hand if they still have a card in hand.
Build your decks. While looking at what people are playing is important to see what you will likely fight and get ideas for what works with your deck, it is very important to understand the ratios and reason behind your cards. Knowing the logic behind the deckbuilding helps improve your understanding while playing the deck.
Even attempting to build a deck, looking at a winning list, seeing the differences, and asking why the differences exist can help without playing a single game. Anything that forces you to think about your deck, what it does, how it does it, and why it can helps.
Yeah, this plus review your losses and play other decks are really the learning to do anything trifecta. Being able to copy someone else's work is nice and all, but doesn't mean anything long term for any skill. It's like being a musician who only does covers. Now, granted, for some people that's fine. It DOES teach you the basics and if that's all they need to have fun, that works for them but for someone who wants to get better you need to move on from that eventually.
@@RunicSigils The analogy to musicians isn't great, because "musicians" includes "performers." When I read it, I was confused because one can get _very_ skilled (at performing) without composing (or even arranging) any music at all, and playing other people's music does far more than nothing for one's understanding of theory. If you were referring to composers/compositional skill specifically, then your analogy makes sense, but it doesn't read that way. I like what you have to say, to be clear. I think you have it right. But bad analogies can distract from good points, so I figured I should let you know that yours may not read clearly. Bear in mind that I play music myself, so I may read your analogy far differently than most people would - my judgement may not be representative. (edit - typo)
Surprised at the sheer magnitute of good advice in the comments, so I'll throw my hat in the ring. Playing/testing different decks not only improves your understanding of the game as a whole, but also, unsurprisingly, _of those decks._ Playing against rogue or even meta decks that you have no idea what they do can be stressful and put you at a basic understanding disadvantage, whereas playing *with* those decks, even just testing, can help you understand their faults, chokepoints, weaknesses, and critical points of interaction/ways to pick apart their boards
One for me that came from my time playing Pokemon TCG was "know you're not unbeatable." Does it suck to be going into a board that will nuke you the moment you breath? Yes, absolutely, but it's going to happen regardless. It's better to be accept it, learn from it, and move on when you can. I feel kinda bad with that one because I went to a local game once, got my ass handed to me (good time overall) and haven't gone back. I feel like some may think I'm a sore looser, but the truth is my schedule is shit, and that was just a blue moon moment. Want to go back there again sometime once I can find the time, especially because it was nice seeing and playing against new decks that weren't just the Master Duel Metas.
Build as many decks as possible. Play is more important than deckbuilding but even the best player cannot win with a poorly built deck and the more decks you build the better you'll get at understanding the value of your cards and their roles as well as understanding the rules you should follow when building decks and when to break those rules. Also, you want to be building as many different types of decks as possible. I started playing at a time where the best combo decks didnt really have recovery and the best control decks didnt really do more than like 3 or 4 actions per turn and I fully believe that those extreme differences allowed me to get a lot better of an understanding of both types of play and it helped a lot as the game has changed in ways to where nearly every deck has to have an explosive core combo as well as good recovery because I can separate the two types of play even when doing them together and it is often better to think of things in general as their parts rather than the whole because it becomes easier to see the intricacies
On the last point about scenarios, this is mainly what I do in testing. I'll draw sample hands and run several scenarios with each where I might see common interaction cards or combinations and elucidate if/how to play through them. It's done wonders
0:07 the reference 0:54 importance of side decking 2:26 being good at one deck isn't the same as being a good player 3:22 review your loses 5:52 find and make the winning play avoid the play that keeps you from losing
One piece of advice to go on top of that play multiple decks piece is don't give up too quickly on a deck. I am pretty bad at this. My main deck is Marincess and because I always feel really confident with this one deck, everytime I don't do as well with another deck I almost immediately abandon it. I did this Tri-Brigade, I did this with Dragunity and I did this with Red Dragon Archfiend. Rather then practice with these decks more often with people, I just give up and go back to Marincess. And even then I have noticed that I haven't doing so well with that deck. Be a better player. Don't be me. Be as proficient with as many decks as you (and your wallet) can manage.
In response to the cjelex answer, I’ve noticed a lot on master duel specifically that some people will just flash priority if they have a bad enough connection where there’s time for that to happen, but not bad enough that the low connection icon flashes over their profile picture. This actually goes for your own connection as well.
lol same, i committed to buting Swordsoul in paper, my first deck in years, just 2 months before the Baronne ban. Idc what anyone says, this the one deck I'm playing, we not shelling out any more money on this side 😂
So much of this info is GREAT and I almost never hear it mentioned. 4:38 Also, regarding toggling: I always tried to use this to make reads & play tricks on my opponent (tho I'm never sure when it works lol) once I stumbled upon it. They don't explain about it in ANY of the games/simulators and it's been around since the old official console/handheld games. The crazy thing is: unless you change the setting to "on", you'll never see some activation windows (like when your opponent sets a monster/card OR the start step of the battle phase).
I would say Vanquish Soul is actually a good deck to play for newcomers (If it werent for the rarity in paper). With VS you learn more about whats overextending, how you have to reserve your hand, how to minmax your chance of winning, board presence, and how to BM (Borger burn my beloved). It has low enough skill floor that new players can pick it up but high enough skill ceiling that it's actually fun
I missed this thread, but one thing I realized while playing in person is that mind games are a factor, and can be the decider between victory and defeat. Playing like you have the out, so your opponent either wastes interactions or holds them for that out that never comes, or comes in a completely different form because they tunnel visioned on one card. Just loving cards around in your hand can do this.
This is minor but choosing which of your modular types of disruption to use at what time. If you have an omni, an ash, and a droll all at once you have to determine whether it's worth it to burn the omni or ash on a search effect, or do neither and droll afterwards "Does this deck lose to one ash", "will they send to grave or special from deck at any point", "are there effects not covered by the handtraps i should save the omni for" , things like that
Just play branded, it will probably teach you a lot about most of this stuff. Weird ratios✓ Going above 40✓ Decision making✓ Alternative routes to interruptions✓ Hard to pilot optimally✓ Adaptable✓ Teaches importance of "bricks"✓ Risk/Reward balance✓ Is the coolest deck to ever grace this game✓✓✓✓
I actually just had a recent example of the "play to your outs' idea yesterday. I was on Tenpai, with my opponent on Sky Striker. He flipped TCBOO on me, and if I had not discarded my Pankratops for Sangen Summoning, I actually could have won, because I could go into a Hiita line and be able to play around it. At my locals, I only ever scoop if I am in a topdeck situation and I whiff, or I get cheesed like with a puppet lock. Everything else I play out because I won't learn and get better otherwise.
I understand Jesse Kotton's comment a bit. Before DUNE revolutionized Unchained, many deck profiles I'd check out online were the likes of "Live Twin Unchained" or "Labrynth Unchained" (remember this is pre-DUNE so no Yama/Sharvara), decks that focused too hard on an apparent "synergy" without realizing that they were making their decks worse.
Lab-ers do love the spicy synergies more than how they execute in terms of tournament. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I like Resonator Labyrnth. The synergy is apparent with discard fodder, milling Transaction Rollback and making Archfiend Abyss. Is it better than just regular Labyrnth though? Yes 'n' No. I had to cut alot of it down in testing to get the ideal result.
I think it might also apply to hand traps/breakers. Sure, Droplet might work really well with your deck, but if it's a bad meta for droplet, them's the breaks, you probably shouldn't be forcing it. Sometimes, it's even correct to play a card that sucks in your deck, such as with Shifter in Spright (if I recall?).
Playing a lot of games with different decks is a big help. Even if you can't afford multiple meta decks in paper, being able to play what you plan on going against is a sign of respecting the decks as well as being able to intuit what cards your opponent has in their hand based on what they do or don't attempt to search. A REALLY good player will attempt to sequence their searches in such a way that not only plays around hand trap attempts but also leaves it up to the imagination what else is in their grip. Branded is a great example in that by now most branded players understand as soon as the cats out of the bag the opponent will just hold Ash indefinitely until the BF comes down so whatever else done in the turn is free. If the opponent imperms an aluber that's a tell they DONT have an ash because they're effectively yelling in your ear "BETTER HAVE IT"
Actually reading cards. Seems like a no brainer but I literally used to put cards into my deck because it fit for a combo extension only to floodgate myself. And on the flip side, I've used Exodia Incarnate and too many times my opponent will try to get it with a card effect and I'm sitting here like, "Guy, it says 'unaffected by all card effects.' What you doin?"
Tip: Play a deck with a considerable skill ceiling. Playing an easy, linear deck 100 times will never compare to 10 matches of a complex deck when it comes to accumulating skill in the game. I played Aleister Mekk-Knight for 2 months at the launch of Master Duel, but that never amounted to anything when I tried a deck like Witchcrafters that NEED cautious deliberation to have a fighting chance. After playing that deck I've had a way better sense of how to make an optimal play through obstacles and when to affect a generic deck where it hurts the most with what I got.
I can't streach enough how much a simulator can teach you about the game. I used to play a fan translation of an Arc-V psp game on my phone from middle school to the end of high schol, one day someone lent me a Flufal deck and I caught a missprint on a card witch allowed me to win the duel, imagine being a kid that rule shaked adults on a daily basis.
My tips would be: if you can’t beat them, join them. Playing different decks helps me a lot to understand what the limits of the decks are and which negates hurt the most. And my second tip would be: don’t waste your resources. You don’t always need 10 Omninegates on board sometimes 2 omninegates are enough. I’ve won many duels because my opponent had to make more plays just to get nibed even though he could have just go straight for the kill. You need to learn when your board is good enough.
This one has a lot more to do with proper control decks (NOT stun) as opposed to any archetype: Learn when to use which interactions you have available. Traptrix is a great example of this. Activating Gravedigger on the first card it can negate is not the optimal way to play the deck. You need to be able to identify chokepoints, either through testing against meta or through studying potential rogues in the format, to figure out *which* effect to negate, as well as how to identify chokepoints in decks you're unfamiliar with on the fly. In Traptrix this extends to all of your Trap Holes, as well as identifying when to fire your Rafflesia (wider range, but it turns on Talents) versus a backrow that answers the same threat (does not turn on Talents, but has a more limited range and you're potentially revealing hidden information by activating). Other decks that this lesson applies to are decks like Altergeist, Madolche, and - though I loathe to admit it because I am a massive hater - Labrynth.
When I play Yugioh. I do like me some rogue decks and various archetypes based on what I pulled. Eventually I felt like I was the jack of all trades kind of duelist, who just plays a new deck every time. But after a while, with different strategies to review over and learn and lose a lot. I learn basically how I lose and what are my choke points, so I get a better understanding on how to face the meta if the decks I play against are the ones I've learned the combos and choke points of. I do realize combo videos always act as if you go first, so whenever I learn a deck, I don't truly understand it, till I lose at locals but usually my first round always is relaxed and people are understanding when I have to re read text.
in lieu of "best" or "most useful" advice, im gonna go with "funniest": Using deliberately mismatched rarities of the 2-ofs and 3-ofs in your deck has a noticeable negative effect on some opponents' gameplay. Not everyone, but there are plenty of folks whose ""OCD"" is triggered by the mismatch, and is distracting enough to them that they fuck up more often
I had a master duel match against a snake eyes player with Ghoti and after hitting them with two hand traps, an imperm and ash blossom, they kinda just passed on an oak, made me realise no deck can completely play through disruption
Risky game winning play vs. Safe stay alive play Idk, I kind of disagree, I think staying alive is often times much more beneficial in uncertain circumstances. Like, don't get me wrong if you can end the game, end the game. One top decked Evenly can ruin your day. But I have lost so many games taking the risky play, getting Nibiru'd, Imperm on my Acesscode, attacked a facedown beefy Gren Maju when instead I could have just used SP to remove it and try to get him next turn.
The best piece of advice I have is and this goes for comp and brewers the wall you are smashing your head against will eventually yield it may seem impossible and it can be frustrating but you will eventually break through
for me the biggest lesson was that even in tier 0 formats, meta decks are not the only viable option, I made that mistake for awhile and would end up chasing the meta, and because I learn decks slower than most people, by the time I had even close to a good grasp on it there would be a new meta deck and I would have to start all over again, eventually I just said fuck it, found a fun deck that could still put out decent boards, and now I only have to learn a few new combo lines as I adapt my deck to whatever archetype is currently "ruining yugioh"
You need to focus on surviving to the next turn, and not on locking your opponent out of the game. If it's turn 3 or onward and you can't kill your opponent, instead of trying to put up as much interaction as possible for when tou pass turn, maybe less interaction and a couple extra blockers would be better. This also applies to overextending. Instead of your turn one combo trying to put up 6 negates, keep some resources in your hand just in case they break your board. Because the difference between lets say 3 and 4 points of interaction isn't as big as you might think. If your opponet could break a board of 3 interactions, chamces are they might be able to break 4, so keep that last extender in your hand for turn 3
Honestly on that last point: test hands should be played as if you’re going into a board or they hand trap optimally as well as occasionally uninterrupted. As someone who doesn’t get to go to locals more than once every month or so and without a lot of friends to play against, I find myself really locking in my deck that way without the pressure of an opponent calling slow play on db. Hell, sometimes I pull out another deck and play against at boards/hts against myself that way
@7:05 soooo true I feel like my biggest hurdle to improving intentional was rng mitigation. If you brick, thats not luck; thats deck building. If your opponent opens the nuts, thats not luck; thats preparation. Blaming "uncontrollable" circumstances removes blame from the player. You need to abandon your pride and realize theres so much more to learn.
Bricking is only ever not your fault if you actually did build the deck optimally and have the 99.99999999% chance to open something, and you didn't. Because almost every deck in existence will have that one brick hand where it's all specifically an extender of some kind, or a control tool without a way to trigger it. That's just lady luck herself coming down to ruin your hand because it'd be funny. Also if your opponent opens nuts sometimes that is luck. Because let's be honest there's hands that do stuff, good hands that do everything, and the golden god hand that shall carry you off into Valhalla. Because that also applies to you.
@krullachief669 I agree to an extent. Any deck worth its salt can open 3 and 2 of a hand trap going first, and that sucks, but i think the concept is more applicable to mid range players who run bad ratios, 2 card combo bricks, garnets, etc. When low-level players blame that their draws are unlucky, they are shifting blame away from themselves, who is the one who can actually fix it. As for the God hand, I think if you're piloting a deck, you should know its upper limits. If you know your archetype's best hand can only play through 3 interruptions, and they have 4, you shouldn't be tilted by the luck of their hand; rather, reevaluate if the archetype is worth using at all. You should always play like your opponent will have the maximum interruptions because if you don't, you're converting their bad luck into a falsely inflated level of your skill. All things boil down to numbers. The random element can be deflated to an incredible degree when you put enough thought into it.
@@wario1226 On your first point: Fair enough, those intrinsicly blaming luck when they still run bad ratios really need to learn that you need a consistent deck, though you can still legitimately brick after fixing them. On your second point: The "play through X amount of interruptions" thing really depends on just what exact interrupts they use, honestly. Thanks to just how varied that could be, I could reasonably see a deck being able to play through, say a droll, but not a nibiru. Which is more of an archetypal strength or not, yes, but should always be mentioned. As for playing like they have maximum interrupts, that all depends on how risky you want to be, which is more of a playstyle thing than anything else.
6:00 this is the part many players don’t get. A lot of times when watched Dkayed tournaments especially, a player will get bashed for taking a risk just because it didn’t work out. But what people ignore is that had it worked it would have won the game. At their core, every move in a card game is a gamble. You should play to win, not just to not lose
I don't easily scoop as a Master Duel player. There are times where you win when you think you can't. There are more win conditions than you may think, such as your opponent disrupting you in the wrong places, the opponent passing turn due to low time, or timing out.
• Always play 60 cards. If your deck has more good cards, it makes it a better deck.
• Play as many one-of outs as possible. If you play 3 of "the best" hand traps like a meta sheep, you'll miss the chance to resolve Witch's Strike.
• Never review your losses. Only losers dwell on their mistakes. The reason why you lost won't matter if you just win every game.
• BLING OUT. Everyone knows you're more likely to draw a better hand if your cards are shinier, but most forget that the psychological damage you cause on your opponent by using an ultra expensive deck can win you games.
• Similarly, use mats, sleeves, and field centers with lewd imagery. You may get free wins from people who don't want to duel you because they are uncomfortable. Being aroused also projects a dominant vibe, lowering their confidence.
• Do not shower or groom before a week before a tournament. Your body odor is always worse for others, which can throw them off their game.
• When they use an expensive card, ask to read it and proceed to bend it, so they are discouraged from using it again, fearing you might damage it when requesting to re-read.
• Retain semen.
On an unrelated note: Always think critically about advice given in RUclips comments.
Remember to always bring a token type belonging to a meta deck that you're not playing. "Oh, you thought I was playing Sword soul, too bad dimensional barrier does nothing to GREN MAJU. Just don't admit that you did it for this exact reason.
i've found that not showering for a month before the tournament is actually more efficient, as sometimes your intense odor might just kill your opponent outright. saves you considerable time!
There's so many things that makes 60 cards a perfectly viable thing to do. Look at MTG with their no card limit bullshit. 120+ card decks and you still lose cuz they always find what they want via their infinite pull of search and stun cards. Or better yet, the jokesters responsible for the 40-60 card deck limit in the first place. I don't know if they ever won with that 7 foot long deck, but man was that funny.
Plus it makes it harder for players to ruin your deck by forcefully removing cards from or or banishing them constantly. I hadn't won against a Kashtira deck that tried this yet, but I sure as hell gave them a hard time beating me and my fur hire or dragon maid decks because of it. xD
@@hiddenmaster6062 the jokesters responsible for the card limit called themselves the delinquent duo, iirc.
5:00 - for anyone who struggles with this, it might help if you remember one play Joshua Schmidt made in last year's Master Duel Worlds. He put a Naturia monster on board for no particular reason (the game was essentially won either way), then realized that it was the wrong play (iirc because it gave his opponent a Zeus line), so responded by tributing it to its own effect to special summon from deck, and used his own Ash Blossom on that effect to prevent it from creating the same problem. Throwing away Ash to stop a problem you created for yourself is certainly worse than missing the first opportunity to droll, and is probably worse than the vast majority of correctable misplays that people make. One of the Worlds winners made that mistake, and he corrected it. He knew better than to let pride get in the way of making the now-optimal play.
Add-on tip: If you misplay, don't continue to misplay because you don't want to show you misplayed.
Yesterday on Master Duel I opened Air Lifter and 4 hand traps. I thought Air Lifter was Preventer and hit End Phase.
My next Draw Phase I drew Bonfire. I then had Air Lifter and Bonfire, I of course used both. I am not going to hide one or the other because I would've used the card I had first turn to start combos.
this sounds incredible lol, where can i watch this
@@supermonkeyqwerty Josh provided commentary on his games after the fact, and he covered that play at this timestamp in this video: ruclips.net/video/NOfQsWJYTwE/видео.htmlsi=WMf5Y-4P4wjaqGSf&t=6093.
My words were overwrought for the sake of the story, and for the sake of hopefully helping it sink into peoples' minds. That said, I do still find the situation funny, so I hope you enjoy it.
For anyone who follows the above link, the appropriate ending timestamp is 1:44:30. I think all the commentary on that play is worth hearing, either because it's funny or useful.
@@delta3244 ayyy thanks! no worries about the exageration, i do need a good story to get hooked
I just knew i became a "good" ygo player when i was able to use small world properly.
There is a website which shows every possible bridge for small world, you can even filter cards to find the best fit
1000IQ player
YGO:
Banish 10 cards to go +1. 👍
Go -1 to search 1 card. 👎 XD
@@Lorens4444 Well... yeah. One immediately gives you the upper hand by giving you more one more faculty, the other one removes a faculty from you. In a game where your main resources are the cards themselves and whether or not you can use them, no cost is too great for one more card.
Plot twist: we suck at yugioh even with these tips
Twilight Zone Twist: Only you never benefit from the knowledge in this video
plotwist, you buy tenpai, a deck that can't be interacted woth in 2 phases then otk. The only way for your opponent to play it better is draw ogre.... XD i love it that so many skills are invalidated by braindead decks konami prints.
Plot twist: we suck even more with these tips
Holy shit That was Shyamalan level twist
That is not a twist
I do think as Joshua Schmidt once said though that there's an important element to being able to occasionally tell when you DID get sacked/get unlucky, though. That is to say, if you made a choice A that was wrong, because your opponent had card X, doesn't always mean that making choice A is statistically bad - sometimes you're choosing between choice A that's bad if op has exactly X and choice B which is bad in every situation except if op has X. Sometimes you really do get sacked by OP drawing the hand that makes more than your deck can meaningfully play around. It's a really important part of analyzing a situation to occasionally be able to think about it and then say "I really did do the right play given the knowledge I had", and to not immediately decide your deck is just bad or your play pattern was obviously wrong just because you lost a game or two. As a simple example, take setting every trap card in your trap deck turn 1 and then losing to Feather Duster - you're choosing between getting blown out by one or two cards op won't always find, versus limiting your ability to play the game or interact with an opponent in a game where you were already lucky enough to get to go first with a trap deck. That sort of thing.
Tip #1: Know the difference between Rouge and Rogue. One is a cosmetic, the other is a kind of deck that is fun, not a strong as the meta decks, but has the capacity to beat them sometimes, specially in the right hands. Definitely not recommended if you are new to the game (give yourself a chance to learn) but great if you want a challenge.
Are you suggesting people learn the game on meta decks?
No, they're suggesting you learn how to spell. One is an X-Men, one is a Sonic. Both are often used as horny bait. @@weckar
@@weckar I certainly would, learning how different decks work and how to beat them is much easier when you start out on an even playing field. Once you're comfortable its a lot easier to switch around strategies of course though.
@@weckarYes. How are you supposed to beat it if you don't even know what it does?
@@weckar yes, to know your enemy you have to know what they are doing. There's difference between just seeing how the deck being played and actually playing the deck itself after all
My advice would be to learn how to play a control deck, not Yu-Gi-Oh's combo-control hybrid you see with most decks but a proper Control deck as it would be seen in other card games.
My friends brought me back to YGO when Master Duel came out, the last time I had played the game was like early season 1 gx era. Needless to say, I had *a lot* to learn. The deck I picked up to relearn how to play the game was Sky Strikers, and while in the beginning it was extremely painful, it made me a way better player as a result.
A true control deck requires you not just to know and understand your own cards, but also your opponent's. You don't really have flow charts you can rely on, instead you have to play out based on what your opponent is doing. Developing that skill to adapt is extremely important.
100% correct, commenting so it gets boosted and others can see
There’s so much freelo in just knowing the basic grind game. Only way I made it out of silver as a magic player who hasn’t touched yugioh in over a decade.
On top of that, Striker is really good at forcing you to learn discernment. Not everything the opponent does demands an answer, and when every interaction you have is single use, you are forced to consider which plays are actually worth dealing with.
@@DefinitelyNotReal627i’ve started playing Azorius control in Pioneer to help me learn how to grind better
i was gonna say mid-range decks are the way to go as well. I picked up thunder dragon and I actually saw myself improve immensely. you have the simple resource loop that recycles td fusion. The fact that each of the thundra cards you only get 1 of of the two effects each turn so you do have to do some planning on not only your own turn but the opponents turn due to the protection effects of of both collosus and titan.
Although i guess thundra is a bit closer to control now considering mid-range decks are becoming more combo- heavy.
The tip about playing to your outs is one that I learned very early in YGO and MTG. I remember being at a local and someone was malding over their loss and their teammate said something along the lines of "Why would you make the play that loses if they have this card? You can't beat that card even in the best case scenarios." He then went onto explain that there were 3 scenarios. If your opponent has the card that beats you then you lose. If you play around that card you don't have a powerful enough board to counteract what your opponent can do and you lose. The only way you win in this scenario is playing assuming they don't have the card and making the best board you can.
There are so many times where I look at a board state in MTG and ask myself "how do I actually win in this board state?" and if that means I start making very aggressive pushes or walling up entirely then I play to that outcome. More often than not thats how I turn the corner in a game and win. And if I played to that and still lost then I know I did everything I could to play to win.
So, in essense-sometimes people draw a specific out that you can't plan for but don't lose your game plan trying to counter it?
It's one of those things that can be frustrating watching some of Cimoo's series because he'll consistently play cards in such a way where he avoids a play that instantly loses if they have say, torrential, but kind of ignores that he still loses if they have it and he stalls barring some exceptionally luck draws (and the opponent being unlucky and not drawing the outs to those outs in the time you're stalling too). If you lose either way if they have it, better to risk losing instantly and have a chance of winning if they don't have it than to stall and lose anyways even if they didn't have it
@@Gridiron992 exactly. If you try to play around it and they never had it in the first place youre just kneecapping yourself. Where as if they have it then you probably weren't going to win anyway if its that backbreaking. It might seem counter intuitive to play assuming they don't have the interaction but you have to play against the opponent who is actually in front of you not the one in your head.
@@AzureAetherXx Yeah, had to learn this too. My own mindset is play around things if possible IF I can still win the game. So something like Safe Play + Follow Up over getting blown out by going for
max combo. But there are sometimes where you kind of have to ball and say "Show it to me" because Losing after playing around it, and Losing because you didn't is the same end result, only you can psyche yourself out in the former while they actually have to have it in the latter.
A "safe" play which near-certainly loses the game slowly is not a safe play at all. It is incredibly risky, as indicated by the win chance after making it. A "risky" play which has a decent chance of letting you win later but otherwise causes you to lose quickly is far safer in reality.
Coming from the fighting game community, it's funny how many of these translate 1-to-1 with fighting games.
Prioritize fundamental skills over combo execution or niche tech, play decks/characters outside your comfort zone to develop a broader understanding of the game, mix up your options to prevent your opponent from clocking your gameplan, REVIEW YOUR LOSSES (extremely important), learn how to lab effectively instead of just grinding games, learn how to take calculated risks instead of playing predictably safe, yet do so in a way that is CONSISTENT rather than constantly swinging for the fences.
Yu-Gi-Oh really is just the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 of card games, in the best of ways.
Most of this is echoed in one way or another in every competitive game that exists. They're essential parts of getting good at things, whatever those things are
Yugioh truly is a fighting game at its core. We just use cards as a skin.
Throwing MAHVEL and yugioh in the same category was deep. Going first is literally winning the round start, 1 sec, throw break war 😂
@@Corneliusrjemison Round start Nova air-grab into immediate forfeit is such a Yugioh moment.
I grind games to learn even in fighting games lol 😅 labbing makes me learn easier but it's not as fun as smashing my head against a brick wall. Don't mind losing much thankfully, I'd have quit both games so fast otherwise
That example of safe plays vs potentially advantageous plays brought me so back.
Barronne is one of those cards i would always see people treat as this omnipotent god that made them set everything pass, and everyone who ended on a baronne always felt like they had already won. So i make them use the negates and then destroy their core cards, most of the time outing baronne in the process and ending on basically nothing on board but leaving them significantly behind on card advantage, instant scoop.
You might have negates and a winning position, but if you dont use those advantages well you might as well not have them.
Unironically when I got back into YGO because of MD (haven’t played since Synchro era) reading what cards did helped immensely and embarrassingly enough there was a short time when I started MD and didn’t give a shit about reading what did things lmao got tired of getting upset because of “out of nowhere” bullshit kept happening and surprise, I stopped getting surprised when I started to read lmao
Quiet. Players will get scared if you say ‘read cards’ too loud.
Too bad that I can't skim cards well without Master Duel's Readable Card Effects mod
One of the biggest things I learned that really helped me was card advantage. I know it seems obvious, but as someone who grew up only ever playing at a casual level it instantly increased my skill level by multiples when I started exercising maximizing my card advantage. “Noo I can’t use my big attack monster as material for an extra deck monster with way less attack points that just searches, I’ll lose all those attack points. Wait, if I do my end board can look like this?!”
Unironically the most important lesson to even learn to start playing Yugioh is admiting your deck sucks, I have seen SOOOOO MANY posts on r/masterduels and facebook groups where is it just a rando with 2004-esque deck going "oh modern yugioh so hard because my non-functioning deck lost against meta" when their decks will lose to even Dark Magician of all things.
Unironically I think some people push this too far and even consider decks like Galaxy Eye to be bad in Master Duel environment even though it can reach Master 1 just fine.
@@fnfgammer2014i think its more about how those decks are built and played than the archetypes in themselves i am in a huge MD group on fb and you'll see people cry about it all the time and refuse help
My evoltiles losing to dark magician lol
Brother the reviewing your losses still hit home today.
Have the time whenever I lose a game I instantly know how I lost and I try to avoid situations like that in the future.
About a year ago, I was learning how to play ABC dragon Buster, and one of my friends was willing to teach me.
So when I activated a monster effect during their main phase, they triple tacked me into oblivion.
Game 3 I waited for them to go into the battle phase and then instantly activated ABC’s they scooped on the spot and I won the match.
It sucks to lose, yeah, but if you can grow from it, then it makes the victories that much better.
mannnn, those first times getting bodied by an avoidable Triple Tac, Lightning Storm cuz you didn't summon big ATK monsters in DEF or played in the imperm or anima columns will haunt you. Shit we learn from
The most important thing in my improving as a player was just dueling against good players. The locals I used to go to all the time before I moved was full of people that would go to every ycs, half of them were judges, and they played meta even at locals. While it was frustrating at times I didn't realize until after I moved and went to a new locals (where the weekend of a ycs there was still 3/4 of the regulars, there was only one judge, and no one has been on snake eye for the past month) that it made me a much better player. If you duel against better players they force you to play better than the guy who insists you're only playing a deck correctly if you don't use out of archetype cards.
"Fuck it, make them have it." Is one of the key skills in Yugioh and in general card games. Sure, if you're generally packing a lot of outs and you aren't under pressure, you can wait, but let's say they have the out and you have very few ways to get around it... That shit isn't getting any better for you. Make them have it. And if you know they have it learn the lines of play to bait them to misplaying because YOU might know what the interrupt point on your combo line is, but as a man who has played Isolde I can guarantee you they have NO idea what the right target is.
What I learned is: It truly doesn't matter how many interactions you have, not everything is worth interacting with. If your opponent actiavates ROTA for example and you have ash, don't ash it. They could already have what they need and are just baiting.
This has 3 major benefits. It saves the bigger interactions from baits, it makes each disruption much more effective, and it lets you save on resources if the game goes long. Because when you are on top deck v top deck, the one that has a monster on field wins.
A good way to develop the ability to measure the importance of interactions is to play Sky Striker. Every single card you have is a limited resource you won't get back until next turn, maybe even ever, so you will be forced to carefully consider when to use interactions.
I largely agree but want to note its a double edged sword cuz you gotta know the matchup. I've done this to random decks at times only to realize I've allowed them to search the card that lets them play through disruptions/extend past my interactions 😬. There are also decks where leading with a search is a sign of weakness, like Stratos was in Heros a few years ago
@@antonbrown17 to give another example with hero i think ashing a hero lives is the correct choice because stratos is not a once per turn effect and it is a special summon from deck so it gives them bodies to play with, but then a hero lives is also not once per turn so since they are on an empty field they can activate a second copy and now i don't know what the fuck to do.
Noctovision in early dragon link taught me about effects that could come up that can save you a game, IF you read and remember your cards
My advice (even if it may not be one to get better) is simply to try things out, whether out of curiosity or for fun.
Mainly because some random experiences may end up providing very interesting information that could be game-winning.
For instance, you might realize your opponent is doing something actually illegal because you once tried the same thing, or you may discover things like being able to declare Nibiru and then discard it with a lab furniture, and the effect would still resolve.
Personally, I sometimes almost throw games simply because I'm curious about an interaction and how it would turn out.
A lot of people in the thread said this, but yeah, my moment when I realized I could play better is when I picked up a second deck. I used to JUST play hero and hero variants, but as soon as I started playing Salamangreat the world opened up to me. Now I play like 10 different decks, from Drytron to Floo to purrely
God, absolutely this. Every deck feels so oppressive against you until you play them, but as soon as you try them out you start noticing their flaws immediately.
Even just practicing bread and butter combos for random decks in the format gives such a good insight into how other people will make plays, what to do to beat them, and where to interrupt them. Its also really hard to understand how someone is outplaying you if you don't know what a deck does.
as a pure World Legacy player, I found this very useful.
Same thing here, but for Naturia or Libromancer
One for MD:
Take your time! You have 300 seconds in a matchup, if playing against something with a lot of interaction (Lab going second, snake eyes, rescue ace pure/snake eyes combo) take a moment when you have priority. I’m guilty or going quickly to not appear impolite. It helps to think out lines/combos/chokepoints.
What helped me improve at the game was often teaching other people how to play the game. I learned Traptrix combos and lines in order to teach someone else, picked it up a lot quicker than other decks I played, and realized that the core strategy just clicked with my playstyle, to the point of being able to innovate with the build and lines and make the deck malleable (understanding its parts and being able to get where I want to with what I draw and despite disruption).
to Paraphrase something Skarlon said in the Twitter thread: "If you're trying to be competitive, winning is more important than both of you having fun" is a shockingly hard piece of advice to beat into your own head but is self-explanatory if you think about it for a few minutes
As someone who has played this game for 10+ years, I feel like I've only just recently started to take the game seriously.
I attended my first YCS last year in London (didn't top, but didn't do nearly as bad I thought I would - likely could have done even better had I not made two key mistakes in two different rounds), and this year I've been making an earnest effort to keep on top of trends in the metagame, rather than just running whatever in the side and hoping for the best.
The 2 things that got me a lot better funny first was sitting with me deck alone and reading over every single interaction I could think of for the future, and taking a break after many years of playing so I could think more on my wins and loses. So maybe just chill out and practice more at home alone. Grinding constantly doesn't help you out all the time and can make the game boring and unfun as it changes and you may be missing out on certain card interactions you've never seen before
I'm going to shout-out a tip from Pat Gill's "How to get into fighting games". Pick a deck that interests you. Yes, the power level difference between top-tiers and bottom tiers is way bigger in Yu-Gi-Oh. But if you aren't enjoying your deck AND you aren't winning your drive to improve will wither away. If playing Blue-Eyes keeps you wanting to improve, play it!
Jessie's concept of don't fixate on Synergy:
I did this in Hearthstone earlier tonight. Made a board of small mechs that could revive themselves a dozen times, got Divine Shield for doing so, and essentially gave me a million bodies. It came together very well - I could have 44 creatures in a turn from a board of 7. And they could not win a fucking game. Why? Because I was so focused on putting out this conga line of assholes that I ignored how to win. A Card with 120 Health that hit for 4s beat me.
The way I get 'good' is to just shrug if opponent has Maxx C, or Nibiru.
An 'oh well it can't be helped' can go miles.
Sometimes they have it. It's the nature of games with this much varience. Tilting and getting salty because the unlucky thing happened helps no one but your opponent. Shrugging it off avoids that at minimum, and can probably help beyond it.
Sometimes, even 1 ash/imperm can end your turn. Other times, you combo off through 6 disruptions and your opponent's constant complaints. XD
Maxx C is a 3 of,so it's more likely they have it.
Nib is at most a 2-of in MD if you're normal,then my reaction is just "okay,of course they had Nib"
If you don't have a partner to reliably test with and you are stuck playing edopro/DB/master duel. Doing those "test hands on DB solo mode" is fine to teach you about your deck and your plays. Just make sure to consider when you might be interrupted and play some hands as if you were interrupted at the worst possible point.
Some of the best videos i've seen don't just show off like 1-2 card combos against nothing but also against droll, nib, imperm, ash, or a combination of hand traps and show how (if at all) you can keep going.
Saving this for future reference. I’ve been trying to implement and pass on many of these tips, but they’re things I need to hear from time to time myself.
Also, I’ve personally implemented a die into my solo play testing. Once I get the basic proof of concept for a deck working, I start rolling a die for each effect to simulate opponent interruption. It’s admittedly led to some impossible scenarios (ex: 6-7 negates while going first), but it’s forced me to get creative and learn how to recognize lines that let me play around or through certain outs, or to recognize when I just don’t have the out to a board.
biggest lesson ive learned unironically was that my deck of favourite cards was truly awful
(4:38) shoutout to my online only crew and my MLG no-scope the OFF button to nibiru on the 7th summon crew
If you want to learn to get good with interactions and board breakers, learn a Control deck focused on disruption/removal, which will often have those kinds of things baked into its game plan. If you want to get good with Control decks, learn the most common plays from every other deck you might see in a given format, as your deck's strength relies on exploiting their weaknesses. If you want to learn the most commonly played cards/options, you're going to want to play against them a lot.
It all comes down to practice in the end. It's not surprising a lot of Control decks have you minusing before you start turboing out those pluses, since you're probably going to have to similarly take on a number of losses to understand the keys to winning against the trickiest opponents.
I cannot understate just how right Dire is (common Dire W). When I first started to play this game, I only ever played Madolche. Of course, I still love the deck, but playing other decks has taught me what forms of interaction is good against other decks (and learning to use certain interactions, even if it would be normally bad to use it), when I should use certain hand traps (instead of just Ashing a searcher that could so easily be bait or unimportant), and what type of information should be concealed or revealed. There are definitely other things I learned from playing with other decks, but these are some of the biggest examples. Anyways, chain link 1 Drident, chain link 2 ghost mourner for game?
Honestly, the best way to get better is to enjoy playing the game. If you’re not enjoying yourself, and you are getting frustrated, this will make thinking about it harder. Some frustration is okay, I’m talking about being very upset, not mildly annoyed.
Even "mildly annoyed" can build to tilt given time. It's important to manage one's emotions when they are mild, precisely because they will be a problem if allowed to grow.
@@delta3244 knowing when it's no longer mildly annoying and has grown past that, is a skill that must be learned. That's true.
@@GunnarWahl Yours is a better way of phrasing it, I think. It's a difficult skill to learn, and learning to stop being tilted when one is, is harder yet, but both are invaluable. Tilt is one of the _worst_ things for one's play.
Small one I remember trying to get used to while playing that works for other card games; this is a puzzle game. You make your deck to do a thing, the end board is the finished puzzle. Each piece does something to finish the puzzle, "this goes here, this does this", and you need to try and finish your puzzle while your opponent is trying to eat your pieces. If you don't know how to make your puzzle, or your puzzle puts two pieces together and calls it a day, there's a big chance you're not gonna win. So practice your deck, learn what goes where, swap out pieces that don't fit, and try to streamline your moves and responses so turns aren't 10 minutes of "ums" and "uhs".
Uh... no? I mean, maybe nowadays, but that's not how you should think about it. You should be focusing on the resources that are immediately available to you instead of an idealized end board you might not reach. Focus on what you can do right now and how that can interact with your opponent.
It’s amazing how many overlook this fact considering the source material for this game is about a person solving unwinnable puzzles with barely any info beforehand and a toolset that does not seem like it can solve said puzzle
@@lunk642 not an idealized end board, but "my deck does this". Your deck does a thing, it's what you built it to do, an end result in mind. You put these cards together for a reason, why? Do you burn, do you stall, do you mill, what does it do? Interaction comes once you know what you can do. "Okay, I know how my deck wants to play now, so what can counter this?" "If my opponent does this, do I have a way to counter it?" That's what I mean, you built the deck to do a thing. You don't build a deck off of "I'll wait and see what my opponent does", that's added in to the rest of the deck that wants to do the thing you built it for. You built your deck to win. How can it win? What do you do to win? This piece goes here, this does this, these are for this, this piece doesn't fit right so I'll swap it for this one. I said "end board", I was thinking end of game, not end of turn, that is my bad for not clarifying.
@@Kwevin6659 Oh, I see. That's a really good philosophy during deck building, but by the time the game starts, you shouldn't be thinking about what you SHOULD be doing and only be thinking about what you CAN do. A lot of the time it's optimal to make a risky and improvised play way outside of your original game plan in order to cripple your opponent or win outright. Thinking too much about what your deck should be doing can limit your creativity and make you miss those options.
Whenever I've gotten into any card game and have asked the top players around the card shop to teach me to become a competitive player, the lesson they teach has always been, "Copy the top competitive deck and play it." I feel like that is idiotic. Having a good deck doesn't mean you know competitive play. In fact, there needs to have been people who know how to play competitive first in order for said top competitive deck to have been built in the first place and not the other way around.
I'll go ahead and say to try deckbuilding from scratch. Netdecking has it's place, but building decks myself gave me an infinitely deeper insight over time and really imprived my general knowledge base. It's a pretty undervalued skill in yugioh, but I think it's well worth the time and effort
My advice is, for an early duelist or one getting back into the game after a long time, even if you lose, you can gain some confidence and appreciation for yourself and your deck if you dwell on what you did right than what you did wrong. If you dwell on your misplays and how it caused you to lose, too much, it will bring your mood down and cause you to wonder if you were ever a good player, but if you focus on how you played well, especially if you made some killer moves that frustrates your opponent for a while, you can get it in your head that yes, it is possible for you to be good at the game, and from there, you can focus on how to get better at it.
Another bit of good advice that my roommate and I occasionally do (but need to do more often): if you want to play a particular deck, be sure to practice playing against it. If you play against your deck, you can figure out what the chokepoints are in the deck, what strategies would likely be interacted with and stopped, and you can build up a better strategy for getting around those.
1:38
yeah, i honestly agree. you need to know when to surrender, but always keep playing until you can't see any plays. i was playing against meta snake eyes with the kash deck i'm running for fun. they got most my first turn field out and i was fully ready to forfeit until i looked through what i could do on my turn. i managed to get out a big eyes, steal the flam from their field and managed to fully re set my board back the way it was while using the flam to break down their board. always keep playing what you can, but there are those times where you cant do anything and that is when you surrender.
With Jesse’s point what immediately comes to mind is how a lot of people who play VS will exclude certain hand traps because they don’t line up with the VS attributes. Cutting Nib because its light makes your deck actively worse if it’s a format where Nib is good. Same goes with auto including Bystials because the attributes line up, even though you don’t have any impactful targets in SE, 0 targets in Tenpai, and Yubel outright doesn’t care if its stuff gets banished.
What I love about this video is that, if you take away the children trading card game, a lot of the advice actually applies to real life scenarios as well. In regards to planning ahead, expanding and honing your talents, and finding out why things you failed at did not work. It’s such an important life skill, and I think it’s great that these silly card games can help us develop real life problem-solving skills.
I can't think of a worse educational resource than twitch chat ngl
That Spicy tech one from discord reminds me of an interaction that happened in ours, a former player of the deck posted a profile taht basically went AGAINST what has been established in order to cater to the "plan" of the deck.
Like not using ANY of the new techs, old interactions like using the search to make your negate live, and even calling cards that are ESSENTIAL for board building useless
Lesson of the story? Make sure who ever your copying the deck from actually does have good points in regards to how the deck is by looking at the deck from the POV of the players and how they COULD be played instead of copying the first famous person online
similarly, im in FB groups for 3 underrepresented decks that somehow get indirectly worse each banlist(Zombie, Speedroid and Swordsoul) and every other day someone posts a profile with new "spicy" techs that just make the deck worse. It's funny to see
I got back into yugioh at the start of the lockdown with Duel Links and the thing that helped the most was watching the high tier replays. I carried that trend to Master Duel and it feels like something people gloss over. Seeing how someone with a lot more knowledge of the game goes through lines, how they play out of being interrupted, alternate lines that you didn't realize will drastically help your game. I watched Pak play swordsoul on MD while it was meta and seeing him go into Berserker of the Tenyi to turn it into a monk so that he would have a noneffect monster on board was genius and is now a play that I will never forget. The top players can give such an amazing road map on how to get better and what to be thinking of in different situations.
The other thing I found that really helps are guides. Being able to get a breakdown that goes more into why you should play certain cards, the value of them at different quantities, alternate options for different metas, what are the flex spots and what type of interactions all help you learn how to play with and against these decks/cards. For a new player, building a deck can be daunting, there are an insane amount of cards that work together in specific ways. Breaking into that is challenging. I know people don't like netdecking since the building is a skill, but it is a skill cultivated over time and guides help shorten that learning time since it changes it from copying to understanding. MDM has started adding them and I found it great when making my infernoble deck (happy accident of pulling a lot of them when I was going for snake eyes and really had no clue how to play them), I just would love to see more of them.
If you only ever focus on your game and don't step back to see how others play, you won't improve as fast or as much.
A lot of these are valuable for sure. A lot of it comes down to focus, your ability to analyze, then learn and just overall experience.
I started going to locals around November of 2023, after a personal "training" arc for about 3 years.
I"m still learning and improving, but I particularly made the most strides since going to locals and specifically after have a single casual day and losing 6 straight matches to someone playing Exosister. It was humbling, it made me want to quit, but I pressed forward, tinkered with my builds, gave a lot of thought to how to play, started weighing the strengths and weaknesses of cards I was playing.
I still get my butt whooped often enough, but i have won a couple times since.
I'd say that playing handtraps at the right time is an important skills, firing off ash at the first possible interaction isnt always the best play. You have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run
5:01 This rings so true to me. I'm already very self-critical and, perhaps in part through osmosis through other YGO players, am highly critical of my opponent's plays. My worst fear is playing against *myself* who would point out my flaws.
I didn't realize the opponent would Link Summon twice and had Maxx C this whole time? Stop trying to save face when you can go for maybe one draw if you use it now.
7:20 At locals yesterday I fucking lost to a Labrynth player setting 4 revealing heavenly prison and passing. What could I have done? Nothing but maybe play evenly... in Tenpai. Sometimes you literally cannot win. His 4 set were Karma Cannon, D Barrier, Big Welcome, and Welcome. I was on Tenpai and it was game 3 so he knew. :)
A lot of these apply to other games as well. MOBA's game sense (timings, cooldowns and map presence) can relate to knowing your opponents deck and item builds and playstyle most likely correlate with what extra deck and version of deck is being used. In fighting games, knowing what your character can do and what combos where (as in depending on the distance between the two players and where on the screen you both are), learning defence and how to open up a person is essential in higher level play just like in ygo. Where is the chokepoint in combos for both games? How do you bait a move and capitalise on it?
Honestly amazing advice all around which I'm kind of surprised about. My advice is probably to learn other games as well since it gives you an idea of how you usually play and expand on that. Sometimes when you're only playing 1 game, you stop learning different playstyles (me with Hades with the bow and the shield)
I love watching these kinds of videos as a mega casual. Like yes, absolutely, a floodgate getting flipped at high level does have the chance to do nothing, and to improve you absolutely need yo play it out...
But god DAMN of they arent still the most annoying things in the fucking world, especially when you're like me and like playing fun decks, not good ones.
One thing that has helped me a lot is playing decks that give my main trouble, some of the meta decks, or deck I just don't like playing against. It help me learn the choke points and what plays will and won't work against each deck.
"Do not play for the deck profile"
Amazing tip. Also applies to every other trading card game to have ever released too
I really agree with the individual who said learn to play out the game even if it seems unwinnable. I've recently been teaching my team not to scoop too early. I've won games that I had no business taking going second with no disruptions against full combo and a poor hand. It's always possible. You haven't lost until the game is over
There is value in knowing when you truly have lost before you play out your hand, but you won't ever learn to know that if you don't play out many hands into every imaginable endboard first. If you haven't done that, you probably assume games are unwinnable far more often than they are. Besides, playing into tough boards can help you improve at other skills in the meantime.
@@delta3244 100%
I always do that saying "what could I have done?". The difference is I already have thought of ever way possible to play. Most of the time they have multiple omni negates and if I didn't draw the out to deal with everything I either just let them win or surrender. Not like I don't try though. I have tried to play through two omni negates and a spell/trap negate. If you get lucky to get pass everything you need a one card starter to play the game.
I do agree knowing how to win is key but the most important thing is knowing how every card works. Knowing a cards effect, knowing what hand traps maybe in their hand if they still have a card in hand.
Build your decks. While looking at what people are playing is important to see what you will likely fight and get ideas for what works with your deck, it is very important to understand the ratios and reason behind your cards.
Knowing the logic behind the deckbuilding helps improve your understanding while playing the deck.
Even attempting to build a deck, looking at a winning list, seeing the differences, and asking why the differences exist can help without playing a single game. Anything that forces you to think about your deck, what it does, how it does it, and why it can helps.
Yeah, this plus review your losses and play other decks are really the learning to do anything trifecta.
Being able to copy someone else's work is nice and all, but doesn't mean anything long term for any skill. It's like being a musician who only does covers.
Now, granted, for some people that's fine. It DOES teach you the basics and if that's all they need to have fun, that works for them but for someone who wants to get better you need to move on from that eventually.
@@RunicSigils The analogy to musicians isn't great, because "musicians" includes "performers." When I read it, I was confused because one can get _very_ skilled (at performing) without composing (or even arranging) any music at all, and playing other people's music does far more than nothing for one's understanding of theory. If you were referring to composers/compositional skill specifically, then your analogy makes sense, but it doesn't read that way.
I like what you have to say, to be clear. I think you have it right. But bad analogies can distract from good points, so I figured I should let you know that yours may not read clearly. Bear in mind that I play music myself, so I may read your analogy far differently than most people would - my judgement may not be representative.
(edit - typo)
Surprised at the sheer magnitute of good advice in the comments, so I'll throw my hat in the ring. Playing/testing different decks not only improves your understanding of the game as a whole, but also, unsurprisingly, _of those decks._ Playing against rogue or even meta decks that you have no idea what they do can be stressful and put you at a basic understanding disadvantage, whereas playing *with* those decks, even just testing, can help you understand their faults, chokepoints, weaknesses, and critical points of interaction/ways to pick apart their boards
One for me that came from my time playing Pokemon TCG was "know you're not unbeatable." Does it suck to be going into a board that will nuke you the moment you breath? Yes, absolutely, but it's going to happen regardless. It's better to be accept it, learn from it, and move on when you can.
I feel kinda bad with that one because I went to a local game once, got my ass handed to me (good time overall) and haven't gone back. I feel like some may think I'm a sore looser, but the truth is my schedule is shit, and that was just a blue moon moment. Want to go back there again sometime once I can find the time, especially because it was nice seeing and playing against new decks that weren't just the Master Duel Metas.
Build as many decks as possible. Play is more important than deckbuilding but even the best player cannot win with a poorly built deck and the more decks you build the better you'll get at understanding the value of your cards and their roles as well as understanding the rules you should follow when building decks and when to break those rules. Also, you want to be building as many different types of decks as possible. I started playing at a time where the best combo decks didnt really have recovery and the best control decks didnt really do more than like 3 or 4 actions per turn and I fully believe that those extreme differences allowed me to get a lot better of an understanding of both types of play and it helped a lot as the game has changed in ways to where nearly every deck has to have an explosive core combo as well as good recovery because I can separate the two types of play even when doing them together and it is often better to think of things in general as their parts rather than the whole because it becomes easier to see the intricacies
On the last point about scenarios, this is mainly what I do in testing. I'll draw sample hands and run several scenarios with each where I might see common interaction cards or combinations and elucidate if/how to play through them. It's done wonders
0:07 the reference 0:54 importance of side decking 2:26 being good at one deck isn't the same as being a good player
3:22 review your loses 5:52 find and make the winning play avoid the play that keeps you from losing
The Twitter threads are always fun but I never expected one to be actually helpful.
Good job MBT community!
One piece of advice to go on top of that play multiple decks piece is don't give up too quickly on a deck. I am pretty bad at this. My main deck is Marincess and because I always feel really confident with this one deck, everytime I don't do as well with another deck I almost immediately abandon it. I did this Tri-Brigade, I did this with Dragunity and I did this with Red Dragon Archfiend. Rather then practice with these decks more often with people, I just give up and go back to Marincess. And even then I have noticed that I haven't doing so well with that deck. Be a better player. Don't be me. Be as proficient with as many decks as you (and your wallet) can manage.
In response to the cjelex answer, I’ve noticed a lot on master duel specifically that some people will just flash priority if they have a bad enough connection where there’s time for that to happen, but not bad enough that the low connection icon flashes over their profile picture. This actually goes for your own connection as well.
Dire: You shouldn't play only a single deck
Me, who is broke and have accepted my Madolche one-trick status: How bout I do, anyway?
lol same, i committed to buting Swordsoul in paper, my first deck in years, just 2 months before the Baronne ban. Idc what anyone says, this the one deck I'm playing, we not shelling out any more money on this side 😂
So much of this info is GREAT and I almost never hear it mentioned.
4:38
Also, regarding toggling: I always tried to use this to make reads & play tricks on my opponent (tho I'm never sure when it works lol) once I stumbled upon it. They don't explain about it in ANY of the games/simulators and it's been around since the old official console/handheld games. The crazy thing is: unless you change the setting to "on", you'll never see some activation windows (like when your opponent sets a monster/card OR the start step of the battle phase).
I would say Vanquish Soul is actually a good deck to play for newcomers (If it werent for the rarity in paper). With VS you learn more about whats overextending, how you have to reserve your hand, how to minmax your chance of winning, board presence, and how to BM (Borger burn my beloved). It has low enough skill floor that new players can pick it up but high enough skill ceiling that it's actually fun
I missed this thread, but one thing I realized while playing in person is that mind games are a factor, and can be the decider between victory and defeat. Playing like you have the out, so your opponent either wastes interactions or holds them for that out that never comes, or comes in a completely different form because they tunnel visioned on one card. Just loving cards around in your hand can do this.
This is minor but choosing which of your modular types of disruption to use at what time. If you have an omni, an ash, and a droll all at once you have to determine whether it's worth it to burn the omni or ash on a search effect, or do neither and droll afterwards
"Does this deck lose to one ash", "will they send to grave or special from deck at any point", "are there effects not covered by the handtraps i should save the omni for" , things like that
Just play branded, it will probably teach you a lot about most of this stuff.
Weird ratios✓
Going above 40✓
Decision making✓
Alternative routes to interruptions✓
Hard to pilot optimally✓
Adaptable✓
Teaches importance of "bricks"✓
Risk/Reward balance✓
Is the coolest deck to ever grace this game✓✓✓✓
I actually just had a recent example of the "play to your outs' idea yesterday. I was on Tenpai, with my opponent on Sky Striker. He flipped TCBOO on me, and if I had not discarded my Pankratops for Sangen Summoning, I actually could have won, because I could go into a Hiita line and be able to play around it. At my locals, I only ever scoop if I am in a topdeck situation and I whiff, or I get cheesed like with a puppet lock. Everything else I play out because I won't learn and get better otherwise.
I understand Jesse Kotton's comment a bit. Before DUNE revolutionized Unchained, many deck profiles I'd check out online were the likes of "Live Twin Unchained" or "Labrynth Unchained" (remember this is pre-DUNE so no Yama/Sharvara), decks that focused too hard on an apparent "synergy" without realizing that they were making their decks worse.
Lab-ers do love the spicy synergies more than how they execute in terms of tournament. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I like Resonator Labyrnth. The synergy is apparent with discard fodder, milling Transaction Rollback and making Archfiend Abyss. Is it better than just regular Labyrnth though? Yes 'n' No. I had to cut alot of it down in testing to get the ideal result.
I think it might also apply to hand traps/breakers. Sure, Droplet might work really well with your deck, but if it's a bad meta for droplet, them's the breaks, you probably shouldn't be forcing it. Sometimes, it's even correct to play a card that sucks in your deck, such as with Shifter in Spright (if I recall?).
Playing a lot of games with different decks is a big help. Even if you can't afford multiple meta decks in paper, being able to play what you plan on going against is a sign of respecting the decks as well as being able to intuit what cards your opponent has in their hand based on what they do or don't attempt to search. A REALLY good player will attempt to sequence their searches in such a way that not only plays around hand trap attempts but also leaves it up to the imagination what else is in their grip.
Branded is a great example in that by now most branded players understand as soon as the cats out of the bag the opponent will just hold Ash indefinitely until the BF comes down so whatever else done in the turn is free. If the opponent imperms an aluber that's a tell they DONT have an ash because they're effectively yelling in your ear "BETTER HAVE IT"
Actually reading cards. Seems like a no brainer but I literally used to put cards into my deck because it fit for a combo extension only to floodgate myself. And on the flip side, I've used Exodia Incarnate and too many times my opponent will try to get it with a card effect and I'm sitting here like, "Guy, it says 'unaffected by all card effects.' What you doin?"
Tip: Play a deck with a considerable skill ceiling. Playing an easy, linear deck 100 times will never compare to 10 matches of a complex deck when it comes to accumulating skill in the game.
I played Aleister Mekk-Knight for 2 months at the launch of Master Duel, but that never amounted to anything when I tried a deck like Witchcrafters that NEED cautious deliberation to have a fighting chance. After playing that deck I've had a way better sense of how to make an optimal play through obstacles and when to affect a generic deck where it hurts the most with what I got.
I can't streach enough how much a simulator can teach you about the game. I used to play a fan translation of an Arc-V psp game on my phone from middle school to the end of high schol, one day someone lent me a Flufal deck and I caught a missprint on a card witch allowed me to win the duel, imagine being a kid that rule shaked adults on a daily basis.
Play simulators because they'll... Teach you to spot misprints?
My tips would be: if you can’t beat them, join them. Playing different decks helps me a lot to understand what the limits of the decks are and which negates hurt the most.
And my second tip would be: don’t waste your resources. You don’t always need 10 Omninegates on board sometimes 2 omninegates are enough. I’ve won many duels because my opponent had to make more plays just to get nibed even though he could have just go straight for the kill. You need to learn when your board is good enough.
This one has a lot more to do with proper control decks (NOT stun) as opposed to any archetype: Learn when to use which interactions you have available. Traptrix is a great example of this. Activating Gravedigger on the first card it can negate is not the optimal way to play the deck. You need to be able to identify chokepoints, either through testing against meta or through studying potential rogues in the format, to figure out *which* effect to negate, as well as how to identify chokepoints in decks you're unfamiliar with on the fly. In Traptrix this extends to all of your Trap Holes, as well as identifying when to fire your Rafflesia (wider range, but it turns on Talents) versus a backrow that answers the same threat (does not turn on Talents, but has a more limited range and you're potentially revealing hidden information by activating). Other decks that this lesson applies to are decks like Altergeist, Madolche, and - though I loathe to admit it because I am a massive hater - Labrynth.
3:24 this is like the biggest strength of playing pendulum magicians
"Review your losses" damn, I didn't know this was the fucking bar exam
When I play Yugioh. I do like me some rogue decks and various archetypes based on what I pulled. Eventually I felt like I was the jack of all trades kind of duelist, who just plays a new deck every time.
But after a while, with different strategies to review over and learn and lose a lot. I learn basically how I lose and what are my choke points, so I get a better understanding on how to face the meta if the decks I play against are the ones I've learned the combos and choke points of.
I do realize combo videos always act as if you go first, so whenever I learn a deck, I don't truly understand it, till I lose at locals but usually my first round always is relaxed and people are understanding when I have to re read text.
in lieu of "best" or "most useful" advice, im gonna go with "funniest":
Using deliberately mismatched rarities of the 2-ofs and 3-ofs in your deck has a noticeable negative effect on some opponents' gameplay. Not everyone, but there are plenty of folks whose ""OCD"" is triggered by the mismatch, and is distracting enough to them that they fuck up more often
Instructions unclear, built Fabled
READ YOUR OWN CARDS BEFORE PLAYING!
That having a side deck doesn't make you worse player. It makes you a way better player when you start siding.
Someones gotta write a YGO manifesto like theres gotta be at least one
We're known for our spreadsheets here in yugioh
"A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Yu-Gi-Oh!"- oh it wasn't like this
I had a master duel match against a snake eyes player with Ghoti and after hitting them with two hand traps, an imperm and ash blossom, they kinda just passed on an oak, made me realise no deck can completely play through disruption
Risky game winning play
vs.
Safe stay alive play
Idk, I kind of disagree, I think staying alive is often times much more beneficial in uncertain circumstances. Like, don't get me wrong if you can end the game, end the game. One top decked Evenly can ruin your day. But I have lost so many games taking the risky play, getting Nibiru'd, Imperm on my Acesscode, attacked a facedown beefy Gren Maju when instead I could have just used SP to remove it and try to get him next turn.
The best piece of advice I have is and this goes for comp and brewers the wall you are smashing your head against will eventually yield it may seem impossible and it can be frustrating but you will eventually break through
5:05 everyone at my locals used to go "uh... okay?" At my hand trap activations. One of the many reasons I stopped playing paper.
for me the biggest lesson was that even in tier 0 formats, meta decks are not the only viable option, I made that mistake for awhile and would end up chasing the meta, and because I learn decks slower than most people, by the time I had even close to a good grasp on it there would be a new meta deck and I would have to start all over again, eventually I just said fuck it, found a fun deck that could still put out decent boards, and now I only have to learn a few new combo lines as I adapt my deck to whatever archetype is currently "ruining yugioh"
I don't use a calculator for ratios. Vibes are immaculate in Ghoti.
You need to focus on surviving to the next turn, and not on locking your opponent out of the game. If it's turn 3 or onward and you can't kill your opponent, instead of trying to put up as much interaction as possible for when tou pass turn, maybe less interaction and a couple extra blockers would be better.
This also applies to overextending. Instead of your turn one combo trying to put up 6 negates, keep some resources in your hand just in case they break your board. Because the difference between lets say 3 and 4 points of interaction isn't as big as you might think. If your opponet could break a board of 3 interactions, chamces are they might be able to break 4, so keep that last extender in your hand for turn 3
Honestly on that last point: test hands should be played as if you’re going into a board or they hand trap optimally as well as occasionally uninterrupted. As someone who doesn’t get to go to locals more than once every month or so and without a lot of friends to play against, I find myself really locking in my deck that way without the pressure of an opponent calling slow play on db. Hell, sometimes I pull out another deck and play against at boards/hts against myself that way
@7:05 soooo true
I feel like my biggest hurdle to improving intentional was rng mitigation. If you brick, thats not luck; thats deck building. If your opponent opens the nuts, thats not luck; thats preparation.
Blaming "uncontrollable" circumstances removes blame from the player. You need to abandon your pride and realize theres so much more to learn.
Bricking is only ever not your fault if you actually did build the deck optimally and have the 99.99999999% chance to open something, and you didn't. Because almost every deck in existence will have that one brick hand where it's all specifically an extender of some kind, or a control tool without a way to trigger it. That's just lady luck herself coming down to ruin your hand because it'd be funny.
Also if your opponent opens nuts sometimes that is luck. Because let's be honest there's hands that do stuff, good hands that do everything, and the golden god hand that shall carry you off into Valhalla. Because that also applies to you.
@krullachief669 I agree to an extent. Any deck worth its salt can open 3 and 2 of a hand trap going first, and that sucks, but i think the concept is more applicable to mid range players who run bad ratios, 2 card combo bricks, garnets, etc. When low-level players blame that their draws are unlucky, they are shifting blame away from themselves, who is the one who can actually fix it.
As for the God hand, I think if you're piloting a deck, you should know its upper limits. If you know your archetype's best hand can only play through 3 interruptions, and they have 4, you shouldn't be tilted by the luck of their hand; rather, reevaluate if the archetype is worth using at all. You should always play like your opponent will have the maximum interruptions because if you don't, you're converting their bad luck into a falsely inflated level of your skill.
All things boil down to numbers. The random element can be deflated to an incredible degree when you put enough thought into it.
@@wario1226 On your first point: Fair enough, those intrinsicly blaming luck when they still run bad ratios really need to learn that you need a consistent deck, though you can still legitimately brick after fixing them.
On your second point: The "play through X amount of interruptions" thing really depends on just what exact interrupts they use, honestly. Thanks to just how varied that could be, I could reasonably see a deck being able to play through, say a droll, but not a nibiru. Which is more of an archetypal strength or not, yes, but should always be mentioned. As for playing like they have maximum interrupts, that all depends on how risky you want to be, which is more of a playstyle thing than anything else.
A deck being able to run crossout is a strength. A deck having to run crossout is a weakness. Same thing with otking.
Wish this vid was longer def learned a lot here
need the stream he was discussing this on
6:00 this is the part many players don’t get. A lot of times when watched Dkayed tournaments especially, a player will get bashed for taking a risk just because it didn’t work out.
But what people ignore is that had it worked it would have won the game. At their core, every move in a card game is a gamble. You should play to win, not just to not lose
I don't easily scoop as a Master Duel player. There are times where you win when you think you can't.
There are more win conditions than you may think, such as your opponent disrupting you in the wrong places, the opponent passing turn due to low time, or timing out.