The Pends went away in Vrains time, and their last straws were stuff like Electrumite and Astrograph Sorcerer. It was refreshing to see them return even with Solfachord and Vaylantz, and the ability for these cards’ uniquely approached design to go beyond the Pendulum Problem makes the mechanic one I root for as long as it gets the kind of innovation that makes it carry on as the most strange summoning mechanic in Yugioh.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I promise I will after saying that Pendulums suck and should leave. They poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses.
I think a full ritual pendulum archetype could be a fascinating system. Since pendulums act as spells they could basically turn themselves into soft opt ritual spells discarding each other for rituals There are even ways to broaden the system since you don't need to solely focus on sending them to extra deck for value
I think there is a ritual Pendulum monster. Odd Eyes Pendulumgraph or something like that. It be pretty cool to see Pendulum Ritual archetype take Rituals in s new direction. Maybe have scale effs set to offset going neg to Ritual Summon, which is an inherent weakness in the mechanic.
It's a wild idea but I could see a Pendulum/Gemini archetype of all things. The goal of the deck would be to have all your monsters hit the field in their vanilla states and the Pendulum Summon would include a clause that says you can also Gemini Summon any of the in-archetype Gemini Monsters as well. It also would offset the flaws of Gemini monsters being vanillas because they're all pulling double-duty as spells. The general flavor would be sort of like Geminize Lord Golknight (with a rad name and design it's odd that monster never got any adjacent support cards) where it's like a transforming hero who arrives in base form and then they all transform together which is the Pendulum-Gemini Summon. Just that the Pendulum cards are added to give it a unique playstyle and also to try and use both the Pendulum and Gemini effects for something interesting. It doesn't necessarily need to be a superhero, either, there's plenty of ways the gameplay idea could be flavored. Though the amount of text required to make a Pendulum Gemini with a good effect might give someone an aneurysm.
Personally I think you could factor in scaling in a ritual pendulum mechanic Modifying an old concept I had you could effectively create a ritual defined by the scaling, allowing you to discard monsters from hand, field, or extra deck to ritual summon then recycle those monsters to generate different effects. For example a control deck that generates specific effects when ritual summoned and has alternate effects when used for scale, transforming the monster based on whether you need a servant or a tool. Alchemizing the monster if you will into a more useful form depending on what you need
Even in the anime the characters struggled to understand how Pendulum cards worked, which while it was understandable given the plot of the anime it is also pretty funny when taken with real world knowlege. They didn't learn about the "destroyed Pendulum monsters go to the Extra Deck" rule until - no joke - 8 episodes in.
The best part is it legit involves Yuya baby raging about muh precious Odd Eyes God theres a lot i did like about Yuya but that early season stuff almost singlehandedly made me despise him
Although characters not understanding rules, simple or not, is kind of a torpe int eh anime no matter what. In Arc-V also, there was a mini arc about Zuzu learning how ot Fusion summon and she made mistakes such as putting Fusion cards in the main deck.
They didn't struggle per se. Pendulum was quite literally a NEW mechanic that only the main character had access to for a while. Nobody had ever seen it before
I think the issue is that Yugioh has been trending towards generic extra deck staples pretty much since TOSS ended. So the optimal play for pendulum soup decks is to just spit out a bunch of monsters with their pend summon to go into those extra deck monsters. It is nice to see decks like Abyss Actors actually have a different gameplan and still be somewhat playable.
Tbh it's been going that way since 5Ds gave most archetypes a random Tuner (with or without an archetypal Synchro to go into), all while making most of the Synchros generic & most of the strongest Tuners generic as well.
I don't see how this take makes sense at all. Pepe turboed into CDI, Dweller and Raflessia and Pendulum Magician into Omega and Decode Talker - they were the 2 early pendulum combo piles and barf out generic ED guys By contrast in the current meta, Kashtira typically ends on 3 Kashtira monsters, Purrely ends of Expurrely Noir, Chimaera just summons the Chimaera cards a lot etc. IDK how you can possibly claim this is due to an increase in focus on generic ED guys, ESPECIALLY in the context of Pendulum
I mean from start to finish in the 5D's era everybody was running stardust, ice barrier synchro's and goyo no? I do think generic extra deck monsters are fine but they should not be such enormous powerhouses, hard to go back on that now though.
I think endymion is an archetype that actually uses pendulums in a unique way because the fact theyre spells actually means you get spell counters from your monsters which is kinda neat
Yes and no. The Endymion cards have unique effects revolving around using spell counters as a resource. Though their scale effects still contribute to the big pendulum monster combo, only difference is where they summon from. Even Mighty Master, as cool and powerful has his scale effect is, still basically summons himself from scale to add to your negate board (which isnt even that different from Vaylantz anymore). The method may be unique, but it still serves the monster combo. As well, the Mythical Beasts follow the classic pendulum trope of 'destroy scale to get effect', and the effects of search, reborn and MST aren't particularly unique or inspiring.
@@user-kh7zf A difference is, that both archetypes can't really work with the pendulum soup, due to how incompatible they are with general pendulum cards.
@@user-kh7zf while the end board is negates this is litteraly just because their in archetype monsters have negates. As the other person said you wouldnt place them in the "pendulum soup" because they only really work pure and you dont really make generic ed monsters like normal pendulum. The only generic pend support they use is electrumite and beyond the pendulum because theyre bassicaly free searches.
@@TheTrueLeafless I can answer both at once, the closest thing we have to Pendulum Soup, being Zefra piles, use Master Cerberus to search a Mythical Beast toolbox and Servant to either summon Mighty Master or the unsearched Beasts. The only cards that don't work as easily are the small Jackal and the scale effect of Mighty Master, while Reflection and Magister tend to be part of larger engines (and are even being cut down from pure Endymion lists). So I'm not sure which pend piles you refer to that inherently cannot use the Endymion cards.
I love vaylantz but they have no pay-off. The latest boss is great and does so much for the archetype, but it's not enough alone. That's why everyone resorts to yet another pendulum ftk
I think it's the pendulum problem in general. A pendulum deck requires two very specific cards: low and high scales. Therefore, most decks play a ton of pendulum monsters, which usually translates to a lot of materials on the board. We can do interesting stuff with that material, but in a competitive environment, most players probably use those materials for FTK or pseudo-FTK (making 10 negates or whatever) to guarantee the game, instead of doing what their archetype is supposed to do.
@@donee7595I don't know your list but now you can do a lot of things with vaylantz that don't include dumb floodgates or ftks. You can play them with aleister and a superheavy samurai engine to have synchro access.
@@aciesara5444 Speaking to the whole problem - its an oversaturation. There's TOO many cards and they just keep pumping them out every month. This is why we go back to Joseph's biggest desire - set rotation. With alternate ways to play the game and dwindling down the card pool, people can actually play different decks that would otherwise be choked out by the current meta or would be abused for degenerate strategies. Other ideas would be unique limitation formats. Such as smaller extra decks, limits on extra deck inclusions, limits on main deck inclusion, etc.
Every time someone talks about pendulums I always mention this, so here it is again: I want ritual pendulum monsters. What better way to mitigate the fact that ritual monsters are useless in your hand than giving them an alternate use? Ignore the pendulum summon mechanic, they’re just monsters that can sometimes be continuous spells
@@janithernest3929 Odd-Eyes Pendulumgraph Dragon. Too bad it's not great, and is only a one of in EVEN Pure Odd-Eyes. You never even ritual summon it, so at most it is a pend summonable, in archetype, Spell Negate. That's it.
One of my personal favorite archetypes is Solfachords. They are very unique and different from most other Pend strats, because they are meant to be a _control_ Pend deck that actually _uses the Pend Summon mechanic over several turns._ Most Pend decks don't even really use Pend Summoning, they all have various other gimmicks instead that completely replace the want for Pend Summoning. Endymion specials things by removing spell counters, Odd-Eyes Magicians special things by blowing themselves up, etc. Meanwhile Solfachords are mostly centered on actually using the Pend Summon mechanic. Their scale effects are simple - the low levels have "Your Pend Summons of Solfachord monsters can't be negated." and the high levels have "Your opponent can't activate spell/trap/monster effects when your Solfachords are Pend Summoned.", all with no further scale effects. From there, each of the members have varying effects from searching, to bouncing backrow, to quick effect making the target card banish instead of going anywhere else when it leaves the field this turn, to negating one or two face-up cards on the field until the end of your opponent's turn. Also, their archetypal counter trap _isn't a generic archetypal omni-negate._ Instead, it shuffles one face-up Pend from the ED back to make all your Pend monsters unaffected by the previous chain link and makes your scales unable to be destroyed or banished by the previous chain link. It's damn good protection. Also, Solfachords skirt the "just make a bunch of generic ED boss monsters" issue by virtue of several things: they all have different levels (so no XYZ), none of them are Tuners (so no Synchros), there's no archetypal fusion effect (so no Fusions). I will admit to using a lot of strong Links, but that is partly because of Pends still having the MR4 restrictions even in MR5 when everything else was released. So Pends heavily rely on Links both to summon materials and to use those materials. The field spell entirely fixes the high scale issue by OPT adding a scale's level to its scale number (setting any Solfachord to 9 when all the archetype are 1-8).
I love Solfachords, everything from the art to the design philosophy behind them is fantastic, but unfortunately they too fall prey to the simple strategy of being used en masse as material for generic Extra Deck boss monsters. Even when we got the new Link the first thing people said was "let's use this to cheat out Z-ARC with Soul of the Supreme King and still get its effect off"
When you play then in DL you realize they were designed to be play there,sadly their og gimmick is still a hindrance(tying levels to scales was a bad idea...) But they indeed are really fun and perfect to teach the mechanic for newcomers
Hey! As the person who just topped with solfachords in the LCS I have some things to share here They’re sadly really really bad And formal is a horrible horrible card It really feels like they tried to make them fair but they feel like they came out 5 years too late No scale effects is not good, and the deck has exactly 1 in archetype extender It lives exactly by link monsters existing I really wish they did more but they are pretty fun to play even if they’re kind of fragile
I love solfa too deviner of the herold is there bff seting up miltiple negates with them cause of coolias link version its insane idk why noone is trying them out my end bourd is mostly odd eyes ritual monster link coolia savage dragon and necro valley ( you can search it by pend summon the majestic pegasus dracoslayer card) and you can also have if your hand was insane Ip on the board to link coolia after being used for an unchained abomanation to get even more vallue from your pend coolias weak popp effect while your odd eyes find the free pend zone he needs to negate a spell. Its so much fun and the reason why i love pend decks
Abyss Actors is thematically my favorite deck. Absolutely makes sense that actors would swarm the stage and then go backstage once their part is over, waiting for the next scene. Hyper Director and Super Producer both working backstage, so they are both Extra Deck monsters, Comic Relief trolling people, Sassy Rookie, getting all the blame reflected onto him to protect bigger stars and Curtain Raiser being the main combo starter. Anti-spell is cringe, but after adding small Bystial engine and Starving Venom alongside Super Poly, it gave me a 9 game winning streak in Platinum in my first season of playing Master Duel against decks I've sometimes seen for the first time.
I know it’s a part of the Monster combos, but Endymion and Mythical Beasts I think used Pendulums really well. Using them as a Monster, or a spell to generate Spell Counters is really cool to me.
@@tempusername-l5d Indeed increasing the number of parts increases the total number of possible states, eg. 2 items in 2 ways, 3 items can be arranged in 6 ways, etc. however this requires each variable be independent of each other, and each new addition functions as monopoles of variation: Rather, since each variable usually influences others in a real game, increasing the number of moving parts can decrease the number of possible motions. I dont have a maths proof for that but some examples I thought of: Two cogs can rotate around each other all the way, but add one more linked cog and the total number of orientations only doubles (not factorially), BUT all motion ceases to be possible (the cogs get stuck). the same with bars: two connected lined can reorientate themselves, 3 lines cannot, but then 4+ can (a square can be squished into a diamond), but the range decreases to a limit at a circle. Only if you dont link them do you get the factoral increase. Infact if like with the cogs you linked ALL of the lines, past 3 lines no perfect shape is possible. In the 4d Chess game you get something else: possibilities are so opened up that the number of viable strategies plummets because, through pure chaotic rute force, known victories become easier and easier (more of them exist and in fewer moves). It seems a lot more complicated though as you said: games too simple become easy to solve or learn making for boring games. hope i made sense
@richardsejour7731 an increase in hypothetical options usually ends up decreasing realistic options. The more options you have, the higher the probability that one will be clearly optimal above all of the others, in which case the optimal option is the only "real" option.
I like some of the ideas Konami has had recently with Numerelia in using Pendulum Monsters as a way to basically give an archetype a unique field spell that also benefits from monster support. There is a lot of fun design space, I think, in making Pendulum Monsters basically these versatile support cards for an archetype. The whole Face-Up Extra Deck aspect of Pendulums feels as though someone at Konami had a really cool idea, and then someone else was worried that it wouldn't be flashy enough and might otherwise just be reduced to a gimmick among some monsters in some archetypes as opposed to a summoning mechanic and spactacle that felt like an evolution for the game. What could have been a cool idea for a type of modular card type that would allow duelists to use the cards in their hands in all different kinds of ways - normal summon, set scales, use a continuous spell effect, special summon from the hand to bring out bigger monsters that require tributes/material - instead just became a big soup of combo pieces and it really limited the design space.
I've always wanted a ritual pendulum archetype having the pendulum part be the ritual spell itself or ritual summon from the pend zone would be cool or an archetype treating the pendulum type as an infection turning your opponent's monsters into pend scales using their level as their scale maybe and having premium removal like quick effect place one monster your opponent controls face up in their extra deck or your pend zone. There's a lot of really creative ideas out there.
I don't think that was ever meant to be a thing though. I think the scale gems was mainly just an asthetic thing. There being two on each side with the same number was probably just for style and symmetry.
that is in fact already the case. scale changes depending on where you place pendulums. it has simply never mattered because every pendulum features the same scale on both sides.
Metaphys Decoy Dragon is probably the coolest application of the pendulum mechanic (in theory), it's essentially a way to get the same protection that one would normal summoning it, but with a downside (the high level metaphys don't get there "summoned by 'Metaphys' monster" effects)
It’s pretty neat because the only reason it’s a pendulum is to get the best effects when summoning (the much earlier-released) Metaphys Horus, so I think they did a solid job with its effects. Having said that, its status as a pendulum is pretty anti-synergistic with the archetype as a whole. It basically forces you to play banishing floodgates otherwise it just gets popped and becomes completely inaccessible. I mean, if you’re playing pure Metaphys you probably need banishing floodgates to stand a chance anyway lol, but it’s one of many weird self-nerfing elements of an already bad archetype (which I nonetheless love).
I really hate that it is a pendulum... In an archetype that literally only has it as the pendulum monster... Like, if it had its banishing effect for when it is send to the ed, it would be much better, but since it doesnt, once it goes to the ed, its pretty much dead.
Metaphys should get the shs treatment in that more pendulum monsters are added, but not too many, and a scale that fetches another of the archetype's scale. Although preferably it's toned down effect-wise, unlike shs's new scales
If more pendulums are added to Metaphys, I'd prefer there pendulum effect to act as a second option as opposed to a pendulum card, to really take advantage of the modular design pendulums inherently have, but hasn't really been explored yet.
I came back to Yugioh because of Pendulums, the anime suddenly showing you can summon a bunch of monsters to then use as Synchro or Xyz materials actually made the game seem simpler and more fun. Kinda sad to see how the mechanic has been handled in this game
I feel like Konami should have a version of the game that is identical to the anime rules shown within the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. From what I know, Konami did that for the original Vrains Link monster rules IRL but a bunch of combo obsessed numb nuts ruined that by whining to Konami to change it for them. This is why Yu-Gi-Oh! Solitaire is the current & future of all metas.
Whoever doesn't use Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon is strange. That one card is essential to nearly all my decks on Duel Links. It is the primary search tool for the high scale, while in a couple decks I drop Performapal Salutiger to get the other end if I am not otherwise lucky or choose to somehow not use that archetype (Swingobra/Gongato). There are a couple dinos I splash in too now.
Vaylantz is another good recent Pendulum archetype - though it's missing a bit of polish. Leaning in on "Pendulums are monsters that can be spells" for moving forwards and backwards is great... but it really feels like something's missing, since when pushed-back Vaylantz can't use their scale effects otherwise be at all useful. Rather than strategically moving your pieces forwards and backwards to get different effects, you just want everything forwards and pushed-back is just weird semi-removal.
I think it would be interesting if there was a pendulum archetype that could take their pendulum extra deck monsters and just directly flip them face up through the card effects of the pendulum main deck cards. Then they'd be able to pendulum summon their fusion/synchro/XYZ pendulum monsters without needing to properly summon them first.
I feel like this is a really cool idea. (for a single Pend archetype) Give them all kinds of ED Pends, but DON'T give them any matching levels or Tuners or fusion effects. Instead, let them have effects to flip their ED Pends face-up to Pend Summon them.
main issue with that is that i don't think that actually works p. sure if you cheat out a pendulum synchro through limit overdrive or the like and it dies, you won't be able to pendulum summon it despite it now being face-up in your extra deck. a pendulum summon isn't really a proper special summon like all other card type summons, hence why the only cards that _need_ to be pendulum summoned are the ones that explicitly say so in their card text
You can't pend summon those face up extra deck monsters because they were never actually summoned properly. The way the gimmick would work is if you had a scales effect that allows you to summon face down monsters from the extra deck of that archetype.
Pendulum is a perfect fix for underpowered card types: Toon, Gemini, and Spirit. Some solid Pendulum Support would make all these actually viable in a way that works with them. Pendulum Spirit Monsters actually sound nutty.
There are Pendulum Spirit monsters 1 is an unofficial archetype called Fighting Spirit Pendulum monsters, they’re all level 5 and they all have the pend scale of 9 and the pend effect to bounce themselves when they’re used to pend summon, one of them on normal summon will destroy all spells and traps in your opponent’s Pend Scale Zones, one on normal summon will destroy all of your opponent’s monsters directly above their pendulum scale zones, one will allow you to select one of your pendulum scale columns and destroy all of the cards your opponent has in that column and I don’t remember the last one The second is only kinda since they’re not spirit monsters but they share the same “if this card is normal summoned, return it to the hand at the end phase” and he’ll it’s not even a pendulum archetype, it’s Yosenju with their playstyle revolving around normal summoning all of their regular monsters and Pendulum Summoning their Mayosenju boss monsters as well as using a combo of a spell and a trap to bounce cards your opponent controls when a card of yours is returned to your hand and then send all cards returned to the hand back to the deck unless they’re Yosenju monsters
Like most things in Yugioh, the concept of the core mechanic (Pendulums) isn't inherently too complicated compared to the cards themselves. It's the fact that the archetype has a bunch of things for players to keep track of that makes it cumbersome. Also, I don't think any normal player thought that the Vaylantz combo line would eventually give way to Dyna Fossil Secret Village lockdown pass.
Well after learning the game they still don't make much sense to me. But also nobody I play with uses them. I do think Links are really good for showing that not everything is complicated though. You read the card, and you understand it without outside knowledge (generally)
i think the major problems for new players when approccing pendulums is that they have so many unintuitive and non written rules about their mechanic that really confuse you when playing. like the fact that they sometimes go to ED and sometimes they don't. you cannot send them to the gy for cost, but you can activate cards that would send them for card effects regardless of where they go... you have to summon monsters with leves 1 level higher and 1 level less than the scales, instead of the actual numbers written...
In all seriousness, the complaints about making a bunch of generic ED monsters as an end board glosses over the fact that it's much more problematic that Konami has designed something has horrific for the game as Barronne and Appo. I expect a vid about Konami ruining the game by printing those and generic ED monsters like the Knightmares. Edit: Woke up to so many replies, expecting hate. Surprised to see so many of you agree with me.
I'm fine with Knightmares (besides the banned ones) because they effectively take their Link rating + a discard to get a use out of them, making them fair. Plus those effects only happen on summon so it's difficult to make use of them as disruption tools... In theory. The real issue with them lies in IP Masqueraina being generic both in its summoning condition and the link monster it summons.
I've been banging this drum from the rooftops for years now, and it always felt like at most people just wanted to pretend that something else was the problem.
I’ll say this. D/D/Ds felt great to play! And what was really cool was the fact D/D/Ds didn’t Rely on Pendulum Summoning! They relied on their Effects First and really added some easy accessibility and playability for my Beginner Brain! With the advent of D/D/D Gilgamesh, they started to lean more towards their own Pendulum summoning rather than pumping out more cards from the Grave or banish zone.
I remember that I originally fell out of the game because pendulums looked like too much of a pain in the ass to learn. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they worked in a pretty intuitive manner, all things considered. Links though, links were exactly what I was worried pendulums were going to be, dear god, just make it stop please.
Links are way easier to understand than Pendulum though. They are synchro's without tuners. And then you just summon them to other zones they point to like you are building a circuit.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 personally for me its not that Links are complicated, rather its the opposite. They are simply too generic and for most of MR4 they were the only relevent extra deck mechanic due to them putting restrictions on all other ED monsters as well.
Symphonic Warriors are probably my favorite application of Pendulum monsters, they each fill a role for the band and they work their way to a big board with Generalprobe and Symph Amplifire. My only wish is that the Continuous Spell and Field Spell were treated as Symphonic Warriors or had some in archetype means of searching either.
I think a Pendulum deck that could actually be pretty good if it got the right support is Dinomist. As far as Pendulum goes it’s really quite simple. Summon out a ton of big guys to do nasty damage and protect them with the scales. It doesn’t hurt that Charge and Howling are freaking cracked. Really this deck just needs a little something archetype specific in the extra deck.
The DIFO Predaplant Pendulum monsters are some of my favorite cards of all time. For a deck that wasn’t Pendulum related in the slightest, they do a great job of making the mechanic feel like a natural fit for the deck.
For the longest time i've wanted a Pendulum Flip Deck, the pendulum summon can help you summon your flip monsters easier and recover them from the extra deck, the scales could be used to flip your guys face-up or facedown to wield your flip effects more effectively as disruption- I really think they could work really well together-
Face down extra deck stuff, face up extra deck stuff, pendulum effect vs monster effect, summoning limit from extra deck, summoning limit from hand, board space limitations that need link summons to break, rules about when pendulum monsters go to the extra deck vs when they go to the GY. All of that wasn't immediately obvious and the MD tutorials barely touched on them, if at all.
I really love how you are talking about this issue in a positive light. Most people hate them by default, but I see a lot of potential for different and interesting gameplay with them. Just freaking give us more in archetype payoffs for pend magicians, It's not like I want to be summoning borreload anyway.
Vaylantz is one of my favorite archetypes of all time. IMO the most unique gimmick among the pendulum archetypes since you're literally playing Fire Emblem to do a bunch of whacky shit like unironically using senet switch. Forcing monsters into the spell/trap zone as a way of removal isn't entirely new, but this deck does it so well and just makes it so fun to try to do so as a form of interruption. Also my Vaylantz deck has a Nirvana High Paladin and a World Gears of Theurlogical Demiurgy line which is just funny
I am playing Abyss Actors and shangri is not that scary, I can usually play around it, won games aganist it even if it blocked my pendulum zones. It is easy to deal with kaijus or Chaos Angel, dramatic storys dectruction effect also works sometimes, and I play fantasy magic too but it is not that good counter for shangri because it is a battle phase thing, but sometimes it can work, but sometimes it is alredy banished from the deck, because I only run one copy xD. So kaijus and Chaos Angel the reliable counters.
I remembered when Pendulums was first introduced I was actually excited for the mechanic not because of the combos but the fact that you could of potentially summon a bunch of high level monsters with ease (and with some set up of course) and gave more meaning to run backrow removal (aka MST at the time). I.E. like I honestly thought for the longest time they would of made a Gate Guardian theme where they were pendulum versions of themselves and can use them on the board and scale to help bring out Gate Guardian and other versions of it.
My favorite Pendulum deck right now is Vaylantz. It like Valmonica changes what the pendulum zone is: instead of scales, this is your base where you summon your units that then move across the board one zone at a time, all of them with a static ignition effect and a trigger effect when they are moved. Since all of the main deck monsters are scale 1, you have to access their fusion monsters with scale 10 in order to pendulum summon. And their newest boss throws the whole concept on its head, swaps as a quick effect, triggering your move effects during your opponents turn. Not to mention their field spells which can move stuff vertically, outing monsters or resummoning in different zone than the bases. ...and then you look at their combo lines and their best end board is Appo, Masquerena, Dyna... Maybe with the new tribe (Konami please)?
Odd-eyes is my favorite archetype in Yu-Gi-Oh by far. I made a deck around odd-eyes arc pendulum dragons effect and pendulum magicians and it slowly evolved as they added more support into a deck full of nothing but odd-eyes dragons that if they died I can just summon an even more powerful dragon and none of my friends play Yu-Gi-Oh with me anymore because they couldn't beat me
Hear me out, Pendulum should be build around versatility. Each card has two modes, so make those modes different points of interaction. As an example, Archfiend Eccentric is most monster and Spell/Trap removal depending how it’s played. So make more cards like her
I don't actually play Yu-gi-oh, I'm an MTG player and I don't really feel like learning an entire new meta game. BUT. I adore Pendulum. It's such a fucking confusing, weird, and complex mechanic and it tickles my brain.
As someone who was afraid of pendulums when master duel started, I gotta admit that they aren't nearly as difficult as people said they are, they are also really fun
@@PandaHero-yi8pqHonestly a lot of XYZ plays are kinda like that too. I gotta sit here for 2 minutes and go "wait, which material grants immunity to X? Which of the 4 things I'm looking at is it attached to?"
I've loved pendulums since they came out and have played all of the archetypes in some way shape or form. Pretty much agreed with everything in this video. One aspect especially that I've been feeling in general, not even just regarding pendulums but all decks, is how generic extra deck bosses are increasingly taking over the extra deck and making archetypal bosses irrelevent. Like why would I play the Vaylantz bosses when I can use the same amount of monsters to make an Apollousa? Why would i summon Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanoo when I can summon Baronne? The list goes on with stuff like Zeus and Accesscode as well. Its starting to make more decks feel homogenized and its kinda tiring.
Pendulums being complex is a myth , up until md was released i was a hardcore yugi boomer , haven't played the game in 10 years + pendulum cards didn't even look like yugioh cards to me , but once i pulled a glossy astrograph and endymion , i liked the way they looked , Endymion was a throw back to breaker the magical warrior so i decided to learn the deck , took me a couple of days max and i got it down , now i absolutely love pendulum . It's really not that hard to grasp . i have since learned to play every pend deck out there with relative ease .
I feel like one of the big problems is also how they return face-up to the extra deck. A lot of Pendulum cards just feel very samey because by design every single one of them wants to destroy themselves to be retained for the big stupid summon later.
no that's just because konami found one fun interaction pendulums could do and decided to give it to every pendulum deck ever the whole extra deck bit just depends on them being on the field. that's why qli was even the first playable pendulum deck ( imagine how shit it'd be if it couldn't pend back all its tribute fodder ), and why pendulum tuners basically always have restrictions up the ass yet pendulum xyz engines get to just be a thing
Also, in regards to your "big stupid summon", remember only 1 Pendulum Monster can be summoned from the Extra Deck during a Pendulum Summon, and only to the Extra Monster Zone, or to a Main Monster Zone that a Link Monster points to. So in other words, very limited effect
If because they don't make pendulum cards with effect when they are face up extra deck. Pendulum are pretty much a series of cards without gy effects meaning that they are underpower and need to have effect that trigger on destruction to do something
Yeah, I adore pendulum. Its my favorite summoning mechanic, arc-v is my favorite of the series despite it being objectively awful, and I really appreciate this taoe on pendulum Most people do just say "pend too complicated" and leave it at that. They dont talk about the active design issues of the mechanic, how frustrating the mechanic is as just a monster combo engine, and how interesting things can be done about it Decks like Superheavy are cringe as fuck, but not because theyre pends. Its because theyre fuck off monster combos that set up a billion negates with handtraps. The pendulum aspect of it is actually pretty cool, scales going back after being used as synchro materials and the like, are incredibly interesting. And Abyss Actors is just my favorite deck, so. Im glad to see some nuanced takes on pendulums, since they seem so few and far between now.
To this day I believe Vaylantz are the coolest Yu-Gi-Oh archetype gameplay-wise. The pendulums are certainly complex in their combos and they often offer more than one line to get to the end result, but that makes them very interesting to me.
Pendulums were designed with recursion in mind, so the face up extra deck mechanic makes more sense from a design perspecitive than being able to summon pendulum monsters back from the graveyard, for example. This often weirds out new players, but the face up extra deck is (for the most part) basically it's own space that doesn't interact with the face down extra deck at all. New players who are scared of the pendulum summon essentially vomiting out your whole hand haven't been taught the concept of card advantage yet and don't realize that having to set two scales first can be a fairly costly downside at first.
hard agree on both points, second point really hits home just how blind new players and hell even returning players (and pathetic yugiboomers) can get a fair amount of the time regarding pendulums
I feel like the myth of pendulums being confusing is more of people not wanna learn how they work more than people trying them out and finding them hard to understand
@@Malister23 Endymion is one of my favorite archetypes. That being said, there are too many fucking words on these cards, it feels like I'm a novice Lawyer, shuffling through pages of evidence to find the one important line while there's a timed bomb strapped to my chest that will kill only me and release every bad take I've ever conceived to the mind of every thing on the planet. Yugioh players have a hard time reading the FIRST line of text, let alone two separate bulleted paragraphs.
@@scrubzero1735it's an incredibly consistent archetype that pretty much gets you to what you want to do and all the cards compliment each other fairly well. It locks you into itself so running generic stuff is not really the play with Abyss Actors, that being said waking the dragon is an amazing card to run in the deck and that way you can use busted shit from the ED otherwise is in archetype beaters and stuff that nets you the win.
@@hhghfhhfh6146 what the hell about that was dramatic? You got the emotional comprehension of chicken noodle soup? Do you not understand hyperbole, and comedy through absurdity?
Konami just need to start giving decks their own playable boss monsters. I know most decks use generic boss monsters like appo, but with pendulum it feels especially bad since they rarely end on actual pendulum monsters (Emdymion and Abyss Actor are the only ones I can think of).
Most Extra Pendulum monsters (Like XYZ Pend) are completely unplayable and/or are suboptimal. And that sucks. Most true Pend strats dont even have an in archetype boss thats usable.
The first batch of mythical beasts were a really interesting take on pendulum. Taking advantage of them being spells and monsters, they focused on spell counters (stay with me here) and managed to make them playable by condensing the archetype necesities into the pendulum effects. The Starter was also an extender, the negate was a revival, the backrow removal was a handtrap monster bounce, heck the boss monster was a rota. The problem being they were all four scales and could only activate pendulum effects if there wasnt a card in the other scale, essentially meaning they couldnt pendulum summon, at least not easily. I tried making a competent deck out of them before the endymion pendulums, and a rather embarrassing moment was when i went on the ygopro discord and asked if there was any kind of soul charge effect for pendulum monsters. I was rightfully informed that the pendulum mechanic was soul charge, and lost heart in the deck.
Give pendulum a ghost ogre pendelum hand trap. That goes to the extra deck after used but is just lad on board. They need some type of pendelum disruption, they have very little
My personal pitch for a Pendulum Archetype is one where the monsters gain bonus effects when in the Extra Monster Zone, so any of their monsters become a boss monster when summoned there to mimic Deck Masters in a way
Every time I feel nostalgic for playing Odd-Eyes / Pendulum Magican I try to build the deck only to quit the moment I realize it ends on nothing relevant to archetype nowadays. Generic boss mosters have to go, or at least they should never overshadow the in-archtype payoff / win condition. Abyss Actors might not be great, but they're one of the only remaining fun Pendulum decks. I also hope Konami tries to experiment more with Pendulum Cards in non-Pendulum Archtypes. The versatility of being a spell or monster is already interesting enough, Pendulum decks shouldn't live or die based on whether or not you can successfully Pendulum Summon.
I actually love how Vaylantz turns your pendulum monsters into tabletop figures you move across the board, again a very unique and interesting aproach on the mechanic.
One of the biggest issues I see with pend as someone that plays them is that they never have a useable in archetype boss, they always go for generic extra deck options unless forced to otherwise. So they just become an engine. Decks like DDD are forced to play within their archetype and shows that you can make useful boss monsters for pend decks. Endymion also has end boards built around their archetype with Endymion and the mythical beasts. Vaylantz also kind of have this with Arktos and Grand Duke though they’re more built around using generic extra deck options, but still have something worth using. I’d love to see more fully built pend decks with actually useful options that fulfills the design goals of the archetypes so they don’t just become another pend soup deck
The three Dracoslayer extra deck monsters are pretty solid, but none of them interact on your opponents turn. Two are just resource loopers, while one is a super broken resource looper + removal, so they get tucked into a rank 8 and used for followup.
I really appreciate videos like this. Discussions on card mechanics, what made them work, their impact on the game as a whole, etc. They're always pleasant to listen to and offer a lot of info I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the great vid as always!
Vaylantz is such a fun deck. They put *some* locks on the deck, but enough that you can go into the extra deck for common boss monsters. This allowed them to then have in archtype boss monsters that fit the deck so well I can't parse how shit some of them are despite being so fun and quite literally made for the deck. The one that fuses to a 5+ level guy under an EMZ? Fucking love him. He doesn't do shit turn one but he's so cool. The guy who sends an enemy monster to the backrow as a spell/trap? Love'em, and it feels so good to set up your combo perfectly to have him on your board. The one who's fused with 2 level 5 or higher guys? Literally allows to play on the opponent's turn for no reason, mwah!
One thing I'd love is if there were some pendulum monsters with effects that only activate while it's the top face up on the ED. Like imagine a random Ancient Warrior Pendulum card that acts like a general overseeing the battlefield. It has some quick effect that lets it place itself in a pendulum zone or onto the field, and after that it triggers some kind of effect. I think that'd be really thematic and really cool. If there was an entire archetype with effects like that, then you'd now have a whole new layer of strategy. Not only setting up your combos, but also thinking about the order of your face up ED, so that you have the right monster at the top of your face up ED at the end of the combo. This also gives pendulums are totally unique identity that isn't simply 'spam monsters'. After all pendulum zone monsters with effects aren't really unique anymore, since the latest archetypes can now put monsters in the S/T zone that have effects while there. So they need something else to really stand out.
I really like the idea of Pends being used for one-of legacy support for older weaker archetypes, but face-up ED order mattering just won't work out. When can you re-order it? How will both players and the judge keep track all game? What happens if multiple cards are sent there at the same time? Can you choose where newly sent cards go in the order? MtG had a few "graveyard order matters" cards way back when it first started, and WotC decided to entirely remove that kind of effect because of these issues. But I could totally see a single Pend monster for an archetype working like you describe, especially that General of the Ancient Warriors example.
@@LadyTsunade777 Yeah if an archetype was built around it they'd need cards to let you reorder the face up ED, and I didn't really consider how it'd work if you linked off for beyond the pendulum or something and multiple were sent at once. But at least for decks where this was just a 1 of pendulum support it wouldn't cause a bunch of headaches I guess.
3:32 It will forever annoy me that there has never been a pendulum with different numbered scales or even caring about which side of scale it's on, like that could be a whole archetype gimmick. Even in the anime they note which side of scale they are setting, even though it literally never mattered.
Yeah I always assumed there were some with different scales on each side, they even bothered to colour them so they're clearly different but just... well never did. Weird.
As an oldschool ygo player who came back to the game with Duelist Alliance, i was back in the day very hyped for the new mechanic. "What!?! i can play Dark Magician and Red eyed black Dragon without paying tribute?!?" This this sounded amazing. Little did i know what a Syncho or XYZ Monster was and did. And how the game changed over the years. ^^''
He didn't mention Vaylantz because it can be a big 15 combo deck thats bad without Electrumike, but it's a genuinely cool and unique gimmick that rewards you for thinking even harder about zone placement and what scales you have, as well as having some of the most unique removal out there. Pure Vaylantz can still produce a pop and a card yoink at least
One of the custom card archetypes I have been messing around with is a Zombie Pendulum deck that takes advantage of Extra Deck recursion in their theme; they're zombies so they just want to die and go to the GY, but they're trapped in a samsara loop of summoning from ED (representing a control style to slowly gain advantage) until you make an Xyz who can detach them for their powerful GY effects (representing an endgame combo with the advantage you gained from the ED loop). Would be cool to see a similar idea for real in the game.
K so I just wanna point out 2 cards real quick: Predaplant Buffolicula and Triantis. Predaplants are one of my favourite archetypes and these guys are part of why. They're a small bit of pendulum flavour in an otherwise non-pendulum deck that can lead to all sorts of wacky shit that plays in with the archetype, all while enabling the deck to have access to pendulum summoning which helps get around their natural weakness to Scorpio getting Ashed. In addition Predaplants are already a deck that's sorta meant to be splashed in other things, and they work well for that by giving those splashed into decks access to pendulum summoning. Lemme tell ya, pendulum summoning Stratos & Shadow Mist is a hell of a drug when you get to do it. I think that legacy support as pendulums or just adding a pend or two to new archetypes is a design space that's been sorely unexplored.
This is why the shs support worked so well as pends,you essentially double the card space you have designing the cards so you need less of them,i really hope that continues
Halfway through the video I think it's funny most of those points apply to Dragon Link and Dark Warrior too, but I really like how you pointed out abt Pendulum's uniqueness and possibilitiew
We need a full Pendulum Ritual deck. It would be a similar design space to what Megaliths do (act as both Ritual Monster and Ritual Spell) but be fairer for your opponent and allow for a one card combo - something Ritual decks in general need more than any other summoning method. A Pendulum Xyz deck based on high levels like 9-12 would also be neat. Rank 9-12 doesn't see a lot of access outside of the occasional Rank 9 or 10 strat, and giving them a Pendulum flair would allow them to have a design niche.... Not to mention, say, a deck specializing in Rank 11s won't be able to abuse Level 10 Synchros or Baguska pass like most decks.
Vaylantz is so creative and is my favorite deck. It's got its issues but with them all spawning and getting to move the board really makes it feel like it had to be pendulum
As someone who watched reruns of DM and 5Ds a lot as a kid, pendulums sounded absolutely awesome! As someone who has played Magic The Gathering for quite awhile off and on, the mechanic also sounded very unique. Untreaded ground that was ripe for something interesting for casual and competitive players alike! Yet as someone actually trying to find fun pendulums on Master Duel... I found them lacking. Majespectre was cool but just looking at them felt like they were unfinished - then I learned a key card was banned - so I never bothered. Performapals feel like they are mostly a way to use Odd Eyes but I got them to kinda work. Pendulum monsters have a fantastic concept, I hope Konami makes them live up to their potential as something more than putting my entire hand on the board
I feel like two other parts with the idea of Pendulums that haven't been explored all that much yet are self Summoning Pendulums (like the Valiants) and something like a trap card variation of Pendulums. Valiants have obviously created an interesting play style of Summoning themselves and moving across the board, but I feel like it would be interesting to see an archetype who's Pendulum summon is of the Scales themselves or something. I would also like to see a Pendulum trap. Maybe something that helps Infernity? We all know those players were setting their monsters there to begin with
Vaylantz is probably one of the coolest pendulum decks made in the last few years. They are unapogetically complex and force both you and your opponent to play an entirely different game of tactics and troop management while your opponent tries toclaw their way back to their original gameplan. Its great.
Bonus to ocg players for using the fields as complements to more generic pend decks,it's very amusing to realize they transform any deck into a pend deck!
I haven't kept up with a lot of archetypes, especially Pendulum, but I'd like them to play around with the Pendulum Scales more. Have monsters that have different effects depending upon if the scale is even, odd, the same number, or different numbers. I think the extra deck pendulum monsters were kinda cool with the whole "When it is destroyed, put it up as a scale" because it's like the pendulum swinging but from forward to back instead of the side-to-side it originally was. ALSO HAVE DIFFERENT SCALE NUMBERS DEPENDING UPON THE POSITION! It'll make the art make sense!
As a new player, pendulums may be a problem, but to be honest the real problem is the base game on its own is already way too overly complex. Whoever designed Yugioh confused "complexity" with "depth". The truly great card games don't need complexity to have depth. Yugioh really is just a fancy, messy house built on a terrible foundation.
You mentioned this in passing regarding Anti-spell, saying "there should not be a card that says you can't play your deck", which I think deserves a video to itself, because I think "The Floodgate Problem" is a thing worth bringing up, not just that people hate playing against floodgates but that floodgates themselves need to be "you can't play your deck" to do anything.
6:57 forgot the 3 negate borreload savage dragon, and a hot red dragon archfiend abyss.(one of my favorite cards but is just abused by other decks not even playing RDA)
Because RDAs are technically generic bosses while the actual Deck is Resonators, which have been complete garbage until Pulse of the King. Which would you rather summon RDA in, a nonfunctional pile of bricks that will never actually summon him or Rokkets, which also have access to Savage Dragon for the ultimate DARK Dragon Synchro team-up?
I involuntarily yelled "Oh God" the second I saw this vid (Pend Player here). Ill edit in my thoughts after finishing the vid. WARNING. Essay below (also this is the edit) Full disclosure, I wan't to start this off by saying that I mainly play Pendulum decks due to my own nostalgia and personal preferences. I the only reason I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh was because of Arc-V. Pendulum Magicians was my first proper deck and I've mained it ever since. I love the feeling of playing combo decks, not just Pendulum decks, and attepting to memorize lines and playing against my opponents interruptions. I recognize that aggressive combo decks have flaws in their inherent design, but I've decided in my mind to like them in spite of their flaws. But that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge them. I pretty much agree with most of MBT's opinions. Pretty much the only differences in Pendulum decks for the pilot is how you get your combos, how big your engine is, and how your deck treats scales. That isn't inherently a problem, but the bigger issues comes with the endboards. Pendulum decks typically dont have that many GOOD exclusive extra deck monsters and mostly try to rush out generic staples. On top of this, Extra Deck Pendulum monsters, an idea that Konami barely explored, see little to no play despite the potential of implimentation they could have. Say what you will about other toxic combo strats in the modern day, at least they have at least one unique element to their endboard. Konami needs to stop putting Pendulum its own little time out corner and flesh out each Pendulum archetype to the point were they each become their own original thing instead of being a cursed hodgepodge of playable cards. Pendulum Magician/Odd Eyes/Performapal works in this manner mostly because the cards were designed for that, and Im saying that as a dude who mains Pend Mag and Odd Eyes. But when you take a look at each Pend deck individually, you see some problems. Odd Eyes' Extra Monsters are decent, but the deck itself doesn't see that much play and its best monster is completely generic thanks to Absolute Dragon. Pendulum Magicians doesn't even have a playable extra deck monster besides Timestar, and he's a combo piece. Dracoslayers Extra Deck is all also combo pieces. Solfa has its own good bosses with basic interruptions, But Gran Coolia just ends up being a negate with a potentially huge body (its a good card that works with the archetype, but its still really limited in how it works with Solfa's mechanics). They are all forced into the same endboard that ultimately just results in a shit-ton of interruptions. All thoughtful play ends after your turn ends. So, I have some suggestions. 1. Older Pend Decks need exclusive boss monsters that interact with Pendulum mechanics in a unique way and allow for further differentiation. 2. Like MBT suggested, generic power-cards like Apollusa need to be less common. If you'd ask me, I'd take a usable Pend Mag boss monster over 4-Mat Apollusa pass. And Baronne shouldn't have been generic. And Accesscode should have been Cyberse-locked. 3. Ban Anti-Spell. If IO got banned, this needs to go too. 4. Konami needs to keep making unique Pendulum strats that feel like their own thing. Anyways, Thats my thoughts, this was a great video, and have a good day (whoever is reading this)!
Could be fun to see an Archetype that actually WANTS you to have matching scales to make their effects work instead of using the scales just for summons.
Sounds like a funny concept. Maybe a whole archetype that focusses on manipulating your scales and their pend effects all read "if you control two matching scales you can summon this". Plus two big boss monsters that start with scales 0 and 12 with the goal to match them to summon both. Thematically it would be this "two halfs of a medal" thing...two counterparts that unleash their true power when brought together. (probably would need some heavy restrictions so you don't just abuse these big scales for whatever generic plays)
I'd like to give a shoutout to the amazoness pendulum cards. They function for spewing out your hand like a normal pendulum deck if you really feel like it, but amazoness doesn't really need to do that, and even if they're must-haves, there's only the two of them, and you wouldn't really call it a pendulum deck. Instead, the amazoness pendulums exist to enhance what Amazoness was always wanting to do: get out their big fusion boss monsters and roll over the enemy with big numbers. You use one as fusion material then it puts itself in your pendulum zone and buffs your stuff.
Would you be happier Pend Magicians had a "Negate Magician" or "Magicians Blackout"? (Well i mean time pendgraph lol) Kirin being banned seems to signify no. Even if you ban all the ED ygo is bad boss monsters, ive always liked Pend for how it gets to its end board through generating advantage by popping its own cards and chain blocking their playmakers. Not the end board itself. To say this is the Pendulum Mechanics fault for having good generic cards to make an endboard feels like a complaint at YGO combo decks more than just Pend. Id love to setup Time Pendgraph Control every game but the game isnt slow enough to let us do that anymore, they gotta print either a strong pend exclusive end board or just let pend have their tools to step back into their limelight. The latter being the less interesting
2:07 I stepped away during Pendulum because it took all my semi-rogue decks I had been playing, and chucked them all in the bin of unplayability. Previously I felt like if I threw enough staples and some care into any archetype, I could at least win enough games to have some fun. Dualist Alliance killed that, "that" being my fun. 11:17 Agree, In fact a lot of the super-powerful Extra Deck cards just need to go. It's not just Pendulum, but almost every deck that isn't massively xenophobic (and even some that are) just ends on the same couple of big idiots we have been seeing for ages. Time for Assasscode Talker and Bar-on-the-Floor to go too. The extra deck should be a bunch of in-archetype monsters that facilitate the decks strategy, or a swiss-army-knife of useful but not game-warping cards. Not a bunch of nukes that everyone gravitates towards.
From my experiencie pendulum were the most broken shit before MR4, but if anyone really thinks pendulum is complex or broken in this day and age they are just dumb
Realitsically, it only saw real viability three times. Once with Qli (floodgate deck), once with PePe (died after a week), and once with Metalfoes (engine)
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Tear, Kash and now Snake eyes, allowed to exist and be unbelievably unfair for months and months but Pend gets any kind of relevance and they get shot down almost instantly
I’ve been playing yugioh through duel links, master duel, and TCG local play for like 7/8 years and odd eyes is by far my favorite archetype to use while playing. I definitely think that banning stuff like baronne/apollousa alongside nasty floodgates like anti spell would be a MASSIVE step in the right direction. Give old archetypes new in-archetype legacy support as well so that end boards for different archetypes actually look and play different
I will be the first to admit, I was one of the people who pendulum made me leave the game, and i didn't come back until the VERY end of master rule 4. (I remember building a single deck for maser rule 4 and playing it maybe twice before the rules changed) FOR ME, the reason I left is because as someone who had played since day one, the game was always about managing resources, and everything about pendulums at the time seemed to spit in the face of that, at least for me. Now i realize that the whole "resource war" angel had been on the decline for the game for a while, and I was probably just in need of a stepping way from the hobby for a few years anyway. Still never even considered PLAYING a pendulum deck tho. XD
Is there some pendulum topic trend happening? I saw some reddit posts about pendulums and yugiboomers' hated summons. Now i see an upload of MBT. edit: after watching the video, I wish everyone has this mindset, especially with mechanic identity. I love Konami doing weird stuff with pendulums.
I wish you had gone more into the history of how the switch from mr3 to mr4/5, the removal of the pendulum scale zones, and the ability to special summon as many pend monsters from the extra deck on the crackback crippled the mechanic further.. I will agree that Pendulum summoning from the extra deck did need a nerf because summoning 5 monsters that your opponent destroyed is absolutely crazy in a grind game and unfair for the opponent, however it didn't need to become even more pay to play where you were practically forced to buy some link monsters in order to have some sort of board on the crackback (and even then most likely you'll lose the link monster so it is very rare you'll be able to pend more than one from the ED to begin with on your next turn). When Pend was in its earlier days during Mr4/5 you were practically going minus 2 in order to hopefully be able to summon 3 monsters from hand and end on a board with one ED monster and that single pend monster.. That was horrific because you no longer had the ability to rely on the fact that you had some defense from the face up ED since to be honest every Pendulum deck pretty much forces you to have to top deck since you used all your resources on your first turn, and your opponent isn't afraid of any backrow so they don't have to play around anything to combo off how they want to (and even if you end on a board with a negate via a monster on your field.. your opponent has full knowledge of it instead of uncertainty which makes it so much easier to play around). This is how we ended up with a lackluster mechanic in the end because Konami is too afraid to make drastic changes to the mechanic because of MR3, but in turn it just ruined the mechanic for the foreseeable future. The speed of the game in my opinion is fast enough that topdecking to restart that pend board is impossible, so they should bring back the special pend zones, and at minimum make it so we can summon at least 2-3 pend monsters from the face up ED each turn and it doesn't require a link. A fully functional mechanic doesn't need to require another fully functional mechanic in order to use it (imagine if every single fusion monster required a certain type of ED monster to summon them, the fusion would have to incredibly busted, the fusion spell would need to be busted like sending from ED and Deck, or otherwise the mechanic would just see no comp or casual play because of how much you get set back on card avantage and board presence). You should be able to use each of them separately and still be able to win with a strategy dedicated to that one and only that one mechanic.
Nemorelia is a really cool idea for an archetype, it's just a shame that all her big beasty boys have really terrible effects. I totally agree that generic negation tools like Barone and Apollousa really need to leave the format ASAP, so that board building doesn't put me to sleep 50% of the time. Truth be told, my fear of generic end boards was the main reason I disliked xyz when they first came out. I thought that they'd make these massive toolboxes for every rank, which would make the extras feel very samey. A statement that feels very funny in hindsight considering how much certain Ranks were favored over others. Ranks 4 and 8 have massive toolboxes that carry some decks to this day, while Rank 1s have a single decent monster in Ensomblue and everything else is pretty rough
One time i was playing Pendulums against someone, and some dude walking by saw my board and it was the first time he'd seen Pendulums in his life and he started calling it a Magic rip-off because it's "resource management" and he wouldn't listen when i explained why Pendulums are totally different, instead he just kept getting tilted that yugioh "is just MTG now". dude got mad salty. ironic since Pendulums are one of the least MTG things about yugioh, and og yugioh had the most MTG things about it.
I'm happy to see Pendulum talked about more. It's a mechanic that's special to me for getting me back into the game which I have stayed. But it's become stagnant and has potential to be fixed like how Fusion was.
Funfact about the complexity of Pendulum: TheDuelLogs made a bunch of Shorts explaining summon mechanics and other game mechanics like targeting, chains, cost vs. effect and such. It's called "Explained quickly and easily"....so far, the part about Pendulums is the only entry that isn't a short, but a 12 minute regular video.
I always hated pendulum due to how PePe and Qliphort pretty much traumatized me, however D/D/D is a deck that I just absolutely fell in love with since day 1 since not only did Akaba Reiji (the character in the anime) present the deck in such a cool way, it also played very different then your traditional pendulum deck where you set up 2 scales and just... vomit your entire hand on the board to go for generic monsters. Post structure deck the deck became a combo heavy deck that put up 2 generic monsters on the field (potentially 3 if you wanna count void ogre dragon) being Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon & Hope Harbinger, now post Bach the deck has its own identity where you can unironically play 13-15 D/D/D monsters in your extra deck and everything is engine. Not only that, due to the "new" (it's been a while now) support, D/D/D can be played with just enough engine to be consistent with its various lines but also enough non engine to interact with your opponent going 2nd on turn 1. The only thing that saddens me is that in 2023 D/D/D unfortunately still gets "meh" support but all in all, Bach was arguably the best thing to ever happen for D/D/D's making it very viable throughout multiple formats even after Kitchen Sink/3-Axis Noodlefiber pile. Konami has been doing a great job at finding new ways to utilize pendulum monsters but I wouldn't mind seeing another combo deck like D/D/D that utilizes the pendulum mechanic in a unique way (and not have a link monster be a pendulum call on steroids).
Before they made the newer archetypes, I wondered if making the Extra Deck size limit include the face-up pend monsters would make it easier to design more powerful and different pendulum cards. So, for example, if I have 15 cards in my Extra Deck, destroyed pends would go to the GY, but if I had say 5 (either bc I used some of them or I intentionally made it smaller), I had 10 spots open for pend monsters to go to.
They could go back to having isolated Pendulum Zones and the Pendulums would be "fine", if anything it'd at least help them avoid getting locked out of gameplay against Shangri-Ira. Anti-Spell is legal because Runick and Sky-Striker exist. Though having Pendulum scales set as monster effects could skirt around Anti-Spell (aka, it's not activating spells it's a monster effect placing the Pendulum onto the field), though it'd hurt the Endymion and spellcaster gameplay. They could include Pendulum monsters that could summon themselves to destroy Anti-Spell, but that's a silver bullet for a silver bullet, not exactly ideal.
why are all the comments like "you're right. pendulums should go away"
did u all watch the video
Pendulums should go away
The Pends went away in Vrains time, and their last straws were stuff like Electrumite and Astrograph Sorcerer.
It was refreshing to see them return even with Solfachord and Vaylantz, and the ability for these cards’ uniquely approached design to go beyond the Pendulum Problem makes the mechanic one I root for as long as it gets the kind of innovation that makes it carry on as the most strange summoning mechanic in Yugioh.
I liked when you said that Vaylantz is the future of Yugioh.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I promise I will after saying that Pendulums suck and should leave. They poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses.
PEND BEST DECK LETS GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
I think a full ritual pendulum archetype could be a fascinating system.
Since pendulums act as spells they could basically turn themselves into soft opt ritual spells discarding each other for rituals
There are even ways to broaden the system since you don't need to solely focus on sending them to extra deck for value
I think there is a ritual Pendulum monster. Odd Eyes Pendulumgraph or something like that. It be pretty cool to see Pendulum Ritual archetype take Rituals in s new direction.
Maybe have scale effs set to offset going neg to Ritual Summon, which is an inherent weakness in the mechanic.
It's a wild idea but I could see a Pendulum/Gemini archetype of all things.
The goal of the deck would be to have all your monsters hit the field in their vanilla states and the Pendulum Summon would include a clause that says you can also Gemini Summon any of the in-archetype Gemini Monsters as well. It also would offset the flaws of Gemini monsters being vanillas because they're all pulling double-duty as spells.
The general flavor would be sort of like Geminize Lord Golknight (with a rad name and design it's odd that monster never got any adjacent support cards) where it's like a transforming hero who arrives in base form and then they all transform together which is the Pendulum-Gemini Summon. Just that the Pendulum cards are added to give it a unique playstyle and also to try and use both the Pendulum and Gemini effects for something interesting.
It doesn't necessarily need to be a superhero, either, there's plenty of ways the gameplay idea could be flavored.
Though the amount of text required to make a Pendulum Gemini with a good effect might give someone an aneurysm.
@@u.a.perfectace7786literally the only ritual pendulum ever printed and it’s dogwater
@@u.a.perfectace7786 Yeah that's the one
Personally I think you could factor in scaling in a ritual pendulum mechanic
Modifying an old concept I had you could effectively create a ritual defined by the scaling, allowing you to discard monsters from hand, field, or extra deck to ritual summon then recycle those monsters to generate different effects.
For example a control deck that generates specific effects when ritual summoned and has alternate effects when used for scale, transforming the monster based on whether you need a servant or a tool.
Alchemizing the monster if you will into a more useful form depending on what you need
Even in the anime the characters struggled to understand how Pendulum cards worked, which while it was understandable given the plot of the anime it is also pretty funny when taken with real world knowlege. They didn't learn about the "destroyed Pendulum monsters go to the Extra Deck" rule until - no joke - 8 episodes in.
The best part is it legit involves Yuya baby raging about muh precious Odd Eyes
God theres a lot i did like about Yuya but that early season stuff almost singlehandedly made me despise him
Ngl that actually makes me want to watch Arc V
Although characters not understanding rules, simple or not, is kind of a torpe int eh anime no matter what.
In Arc-V also, there was a mini arc about Zuzu learning how ot Fusion summon and she made mistakes such as putting Fusion cards in the main deck.
They didn't struggle per se. Pendulum was quite literally a NEW mechanic that only the main character had access to for a while. Nobody had ever seen it before
Frightfur Bear: Hey, WHERE YOU GO?!
XD
I think the issue is that Yugioh has been trending towards generic extra deck staples pretty much since TOSS ended. So the optimal play for pendulum soup decks is to just spit out a bunch of monsters with their pend summon to go into those extra deck monsters. It is nice to see decks like Abyss Actors actually have a different gameplan and still be somewhat playable.
Tbh it's been going that way since 5Ds gave most archetypes a random Tuner (with or without an archetypal Synchro to go into), all while making most of the Synchros generic & most of the strongest Tuners generic as well.
As someone who lived through 5ds and zexal my rebuttal to you saying generic extra deck cards got pushed in TOSS:
Lol. Lmao even.
I don't see how this take makes sense at all. Pepe turboed into CDI, Dweller and Raflessia and Pendulum Magician into Omega and Decode Talker - they were the 2 early pendulum combo piles and barf out generic ED guys
By contrast in the current meta, Kashtira typically ends on 3 Kashtira monsters, Purrely ends of Expurrely Noir, Chimaera just summons the Chimaera cards a lot etc. IDK how you can possibly claim this is due to an increase in focus on generic ED guys, ESPECIALLY in the context of Pendulum
I mean from start to finish in the 5D's era everybody was running stardust, ice barrier synchro's and goyo no?
I do think generic extra deck monsters are fine but they should not be such enormous powerhouses, hard to go back on that now though.
Once again proof that TOSS was the last truly great format
I think endymion is an archetype that actually uses pendulums in a unique way because the fact theyre spells actually means you get spell counters from your monsters which is kinda neat
Yes and no. The Endymion cards have unique effects revolving around using spell counters as a resource. Though their scale effects still contribute to the big pendulum monster combo, only difference is where they summon from. Even Mighty Master, as cool and powerful has his scale effect is, still basically summons himself from scale to add to your negate board (which isnt even that different from Vaylantz anymore). The method may be unique, but it still serves the monster combo.
As well, the Mythical Beasts follow the classic pendulum trope of 'destroy scale to get effect', and the effects of search, reborn and MST aren't particularly unique or inspiring.
@@user-kh7zf A difference is, that both archetypes can't really work with the pendulum soup, due to how incompatible they are with general pendulum cards.
@@user-kh7zf while the end board is negates this is litteraly just because their in archetype monsters have negates. As the other person said you wouldnt place them in the "pendulum soup" because they only really work pure and you dont really make generic ed monsters like normal pendulum. The only generic pend support they use is electrumite and beyond the pendulum because theyre bassicaly free searches.
@@TheTrueLeafless I can answer both at once, the closest thing we have to Pendulum Soup, being Zefra piles, use Master Cerberus to search a Mythical Beast toolbox and Servant to either summon Mighty Master or the unsearched Beasts. The only cards that don't work as easily are the small Jackal and the scale effect of Mighty Master, while Reflection and Magister tend to be part of larger engines (and are even being cut down from pure Endymion lists). So I'm not sure which pend piles you refer to that inherently cannot use the Endymion cards.
Also, endymion actually ends on pendulum monsters but not some generic cards
Vaylantz are really cool and unique, it's a shame people largely use them for a boring FTK
I love vaylantz but they have no pay-off. The latest boss is great and does so much for the archetype, but it's not enough alone. That's why everyone resorts to yet another pendulum ftk
I think it's the pendulum problem in general. A pendulum deck requires two very specific cards: low and high scales. Therefore, most decks play a ton of pendulum monsters, which usually translates to a lot of materials on the board.
We can do interesting stuff with that material, but in a competitive environment, most players probably use those materials for FTK or pseudo-FTK (making 10 negates or whatever) to guarantee the game, instead of doing what their archetype is supposed to do.
@@donee7595I don't know your list but now you can do a lot of things with vaylantz that don't include dumb floodgates or ftks.
You can play them with aleister and a superheavy samurai engine to have synchro access.
@@aciesara5444 Speaking to the whole problem - its an oversaturation. There's TOO many cards and they just keep pumping them out every month. This is why we go back to Joseph's biggest desire - set rotation.
With alternate ways to play the game and dwindling down the card pool, people can actually play different decks that would otherwise be choked out by the current meta or would be abused for degenerate strategies.
Other ideas would be unique limitation formats. Such as smaller extra decks, limits on extra deck inclusions, limits on main deck inclusion, etc.
@@sluggernottBruh, with set rotation, none of my decks are playable anymore :v
(Monarch, Tri-Lyrilusc, Floo-Simorgh)
Every time someone talks about pendulums I always mention this, so here it is again:
I want ritual pendulum monsters. What better way to mitigate the fact that ritual monsters are useless in your hand than giving them an alternate use? Ignore the pendulum summon mechanic, they’re just monsters that can sometimes be continuous spells
I've always thought this was a great idea. They did a similar thing with Megaliths but not exactly the same.
what about the odd eyes cover card from DIFO
yeah, pendulumgraph dragons a good card
@@janithernest3929 Odd-Eyes Pendulumgraph Dragon. Too bad it's not great, and is only a one of in EVEN Pure Odd-Eyes. You never even ritual summon it, so at most it is a pend summonable, in archetype, Spell Negate. That's it.
@@janithernest3929 the one and only Pendulum Ritual monsters, we want an ARCTYPE, not just a monster.
One of my personal favorite archetypes is Solfachords. They are very unique and different from most other Pend strats, because they are meant to be a _control_ Pend deck that actually _uses the Pend Summon mechanic over several turns._
Most Pend decks don't even really use Pend Summoning, they all have various other gimmicks instead that completely replace the want for Pend Summoning. Endymion specials things by removing spell counters, Odd-Eyes Magicians special things by blowing themselves up, etc.
Meanwhile Solfachords are mostly centered on actually using the Pend Summon mechanic. Their scale effects are simple - the low levels have "Your Pend Summons of Solfachord monsters can't be negated." and the high levels have "Your opponent can't activate spell/trap/monster effects when your Solfachords are Pend Summoned.", all with no further scale effects.
From there, each of the members have varying effects from searching, to bouncing backrow, to quick effect making the target card banish instead of going anywhere else when it leaves the field this turn, to negating one or two face-up cards on the field until the end of your opponent's turn.
Also, their archetypal counter trap _isn't a generic archetypal omni-negate._ Instead, it shuffles one face-up Pend from the ED back to make all your Pend monsters unaffected by the previous chain link and makes your scales unable to be destroyed or banished by the previous chain link. It's damn good protection.
Also, Solfachords skirt the "just make a bunch of generic ED boss monsters" issue by virtue of several things: they all have different levels (so no XYZ), none of them are Tuners (so no Synchros), there's no archetypal fusion effect (so no Fusions). I will admit to using a lot of strong Links, but that is partly because of Pends still having the MR4 restrictions even in MR5 when everything else was released. So Pends heavily rely on Links both to summon materials and to use those materials.
The field spell entirely fixes the high scale issue by OPT adding a scale's level to its scale number (setting any Solfachord to 9 when all the archetype are 1-8).
I love Solfachords, everything from the art to the design philosophy behind them is fantastic, but unfortunately they too fall prey to the simple strategy of being used en masse as material for generic Extra Deck boss monsters.
Even when we got the new Link the first thing people said was "let's use this to cheat out Z-ARC with Soul of the Supreme King and still get its effect off"
YESSSS SOLFACHORD FINALLY MY FELLOW SOLFA-STANS
When you play then in DL you realize they were designed to be play there,sadly their og gimmick is still a hindrance(tying levels to scales was a bad idea...) But they indeed are really fun and perfect to teach the mechanic for newcomers
Hey! As the person who just topped with solfachords in the LCS I have some things to share here
They’re sadly really really bad
And formal is a horrible horrible card
It really feels like they tried to make them fair but they feel like they came out 5 years too late
No scale effects is not good, and the deck has exactly 1 in archetype extender
It lives exactly by link monsters existing
I really wish they did more but they are pretty fun to play even if they’re kind of fragile
I love solfa too deviner of the herold is there bff seting up miltiple negates with them cause of coolias link version its insane idk why noone is trying them out my end bourd is mostly odd eyes ritual monster link coolia savage dragon and necro valley ( you can search it by pend summon the majestic pegasus dracoslayer card) and you can also have if your hand was insane Ip on the board to link coolia after being used for an unchained abomanation to get even more vallue from your pend coolias weak popp effect while your odd eyes find the free pend zone he needs to negate a spell. Its so much fun and the reason why i love pend decks
Abyss Actors is thematically my favorite deck. Absolutely makes sense that actors would swarm the stage and then go backstage once their part is over, waiting for the next scene. Hyper Director and Super Producer both working backstage, so they are both Extra Deck monsters, Comic Relief trolling people, Sassy Rookie, getting all the blame reflected onto him to protect bigger stars and Curtain Raiser being the main combo starter. Anti-spell is cringe, but after adding small Bystial engine and Starving Venom alongside Super Poly, it gave me a 9 game winning streak in Platinum in my first season of playing Master Duel against decks I've sometimes seen for the first time.
Dude that's awsome! They always seemed so cool being a sort of dark reflection of the performapals
I know it’s a part of the Monster combos, but Endymion and Mythical Beasts I think used Pendulums really well. Using them as a Monster, or a spell to generate Spell Counters is really cool to me.
I forgot about Endymion! They also worked on spell counters, and I hoped for a deck that did just to experiment with the resource.
The irony that the cards that can be the most complicated and move in weird ways...all kinda do the same thing
thats often the case, complexity actually restricts possibilities. simplicity usually opens them up.
@@tempusername-l5d Indeed increasing the number of parts increases the total number of possible states, eg. 2 items in 2 ways, 3 items can be arranged in 6 ways, etc. however this requires each variable be independent of each other, and each new addition functions as monopoles of variation: Rather, since each variable usually influences others in a real game, increasing the number of moving parts can decrease the number of possible motions.
I dont have a maths proof for that but some examples I thought of:
Two cogs can rotate around each other all the way, but add one more linked cog and the total number of orientations only doubles (not factorially), BUT all motion ceases to be possible (the cogs get stuck). the same with bars: two connected lined can reorientate themselves, 3 lines cannot, but then 4+ can (a square can be squished into a diamond), but the range decreases to a limit at a circle. Only if you dont link them do you get the factoral increase. Infact if like with the cogs you linked ALL of the lines, past 3 lines no perfect shape is possible.
In the 4d Chess game you get something else: possibilities are so opened up that the number of viable strategies plummets because, through pure chaotic rute force, known victories become easier and easier (more of them exist and in fewer moves).
It seems a lot more complicated though as you said: games too simple become easy to solve or learn making for boring games. hope i made sense
@richardsejour7731 an increase in hypothetical options usually ends up decreasing realistic options. The more options you have, the higher the probability that one will be clearly optimal above all of the others, in which case the optimal option is the only "real" option.
Hmmmm
@@tinfoilslacks3750well where's the fun in that then
Pendulum is such an interesting design space, so much cool stuff they could do. Shame Konami has their RnD department locked in a basement somewhere
I like some of the ideas Konami has had recently with Numerelia in using Pendulum Monsters as a way to basically give an archetype a unique field spell that also benefits from monster support. There is a lot of fun design space, I think, in making Pendulum Monsters basically these versatile support cards for an archetype. The whole Face-Up Extra Deck aspect of Pendulums feels as though someone at Konami had a really cool idea, and then someone else was worried that it wouldn't be flashy enough and might otherwise just be reduced to a gimmick among some monsters in some archetypes as opposed to a summoning mechanic and spactacle that felt like an evolution for the game. What could have been a cool idea for a type of modular card type that would allow duelists to use the cards in their hands in all different kinds of ways - normal summon, set scales, use a continuous spell effect, special summon from the hand to bring out bigger monsters that require tributes/material - instead just became a big soup of combo pieces and it really limited the design space.
I've always wanted a ritual pendulum archetype having the pendulum part be the ritual spell itself or ritual summon from the pend zone would be cool or an archetype treating the pendulum type as an infection turning your opponent's monsters into pend scales using their level as their scale maybe and having premium removal like quick effect place one monster your opponent controls face up in their extra deck or your pend zone. There's a lot of really creative ideas out there.
Megaliths should have been pendulums
I feel like it's not too late to give pendulum monsters 2 different scales based on where they're placed
That sounds like it would make the problem worse. I LOVE IT!
@@ButWhyMe... Yugioh players when they need to learn their left from their right in addition to reading
I don't think that was ever meant to be a thing though. I think the scale gems was mainly just an asthetic thing. There being two on each side with the same number was probably just for style and symmetry.
that is in fact already the case. scale changes depending on where you place pendulums. it has simply never mattered because every pendulum features the same scale on both sides.
@@remixtheidiot5771 ?
Metaphys Decoy Dragon is probably the coolest application of the pendulum mechanic (in theory), it's essentially a way to get the same protection that one would normal summoning it, but with a downside (the high level metaphys don't get there "summoned by 'Metaphys' monster" effects)
It’s pretty neat because the only reason it’s a pendulum is to get the best effects when summoning (the much earlier-released) Metaphys Horus, so I think they did a solid job with its effects.
Having said that, its status as a pendulum is pretty anti-synergistic with the archetype as a whole. It basically forces you to play banishing floodgates otherwise it just gets popped and becomes completely inaccessible. I mean, if you’re playing pure Metaphys you probably need banishing floodgates to stand a chance anyway lol, but it’s one of many weird self-nerfing elements of an already bad archetype (which I nonetheless love).
I really hate that it is a pendulum... In an archetype that literally only has it as the pendulum monster...
Like, if it had its banishing effect for when it is send to the ed, it would be much better, but since it doesnt, once it goes to the ed, its pretty much dead.
Metaphys should get the shs treatment in that more pendulum monsters are added, but not too many, and a scale that fetches another of the archetype's scale. Although preferably it's toned down effect-wise, unlike shs's new scales
If more pendulums are added to Metaphys, I'd prefer there pendulum effect to act as a second option as opposed to a pendulum card, to really take advantage of the modular design pendulums inherently have, but hasn't really been explored yet.
I came back to Yugioh because of Pendulums, the anime suddenly showing you can summon a bunch of monsters to then use as Synchro or Xyz materials actually made the game seem simpler and more fun. Kinda sad to see how the mechanic has been handled in this game
I feel like Konami should have a version of the game that is identical to the anime rules shown within the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise.
From what I know, Konami did that for the original Vrains Link monster rules IRL but a bunch of combo obsessed numb nuts ruined that by whining to Konami to change it for them. This is why Yu-Gi-Oh! Solitaire is the current & future of all metas.
@@Knight41b In the anime, what was some of the most op archtypes?
Whoever doesn't use Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon is strange. That one card is essential to nearly all my decks on Duel Links. It is the primary search tool for the high scale, while in a couple decks I drop Performapal Salutiger to get the other end if I am not otherwise lucky or choose to somehow not use that archetype (Swingobra/Gongato). There are a couple dinos I splash in too now.
Dragon-link, salad's Cyberse, altergist, ignister, gouki@@ButWhyMe... Trickstar, sunavalon and marincess get a mention too.
"Salad's Cyberse"...? @@sarthakarora3212
Vaylantz is another good recent Pendulum archetype - though it's missing a bit of polish. Leaning in on "Pendulums are monsters that can be spells" for moving forwards and backwards is great... but it really feels like something's missing, since when pushed-back Vaylantz can't use their scale effects otherwise be at all useful. Rather than strategically moving your pieces forwards and backwards to get different effects, you just want everything forwards and pushed-back is just weird semi-removal.
I think it would be interesting if there was a pendulum archetype that could take their pendulum extra deck monsters and just directly flip them face up through the card effects of the pendulum main deck cards. Then they'd be able to pendulum summon their fusion/synchro/XYZ pendulum monsters without needing to properly summon them first.
I feel like this is a really cool idea. (for a single Pend archetype)
Give them all kinds of ED Pends, but DON'T give them any matching levels or Tuners or fusion effects. Instead, let them have effects to flip their ED Pends face-up to Pend Summon them.
main issue with that is that i don't think that actually works
p. sure if you cheat out a pendulum synchro through limit overdrive or the like and it dies, you won't be able to pendulum summon it despite it now being face-up in your extra deck. a pendulum summon isn't really a proper special summon like all other card type summons, hence why the only cards that _need_ to be pendulum summoned are the ones that explicitly say so in their card text
I've thought about that too but the text would have to include a (this is treated as a proper summon) which makes it complex to include all of them
@@RairikyIn that case, just make effects that flip 1 card type (synchro, xyz or fusion)
You can't pend summon those face up extra deck monsters because they were never actually summoned properly.
The way the gimmick would work is if you had a scales effect that allows you to summon face down monsters from the extra deck of that archetype.
Pendulum is a perfect fix for underpowered card types: Toon, Gemini, and Spirit.
Some solid Pendulum Support would make all these actually viable in a way that works with them.
Pendulum Spirit Monsters actually sound nutty.
pendulum spirit monsters are already a thing
... they are completely useless in a spirit deck, for reasons that should be immediately obvious
Basicly Yosenju
so uhh
Yosenjus?
There are Pendulum Spirit monsters
1 is an unofficial archetype called Fighting Spirit Pendulum monsters, they’re all level 5 and they all have the pend scale of 9 and the pend effect to bounce themselves when they’re used to pend summon, one of them on normal summon will destroy all spells and traps in your opponent’s Pend Scale Zones, one on normal summon will destroy all of your opponent’s monsters directly above their pendulum scale zones, one will allow you to select one of your pendulum scale columns and destroy all of the cards your opponent has in that column and I don’t remember the last one
The second is only kinda since they’re not spirit monsters but they share the same “if this card is normal summoned, return it to the hand at the end phase” and he’ll it’s not even a pendulum archetype, it’s Yosenju with their playstyle revolving around normal summoning all of their regular monsters and Pendulum Summoning their Mayosenju boss monsters as well as using a combo of a spell and a trap to bounce cards your opponent controls when a card of yours is returned to your hand and then send all cards returned to the hand back to the deck unless they’re Yosenju monsters
Pendulums I think are a microcosm of Yugioh's learning curve. They're really intimidating until you learn the game. Then they make pretty clear sense
Like most things in Yugioh, the concept of the core mechanic (Pendulums) isn't inherently too complicated compared to the cards themselves. It's the fact that the archetype has a bunch of things for players to keep track of that makes it cumbersome.
Also, I don't think any normal player thought that the Vaylantz combo line would eventually give way to Dyna Fossil Secret Village lockdown pass.
Well after learning the game they still don't make much sense to me. But also nobody I play with uses them.
I do think Links are really good for showing that not everything is complicated though. You read the card, and you understand it without outside knowledge (generally)
I still think they’re just too busy and unwieldy. I’m glad they’re pretty much defunct
i think the major problems for new players when approccing pendulums is that they have so many unintuitive and non written rules about their mechanic that really confuse you when playing.
like the fact that they sometimes go to ED and sometimes they don't. you cannot send them to the gy for cost, but you can activate cards that would send them for card effects regardless of where they go... you have to summon monsters with leves 1 level higher and 1 level less than the scales, instead of the actual numbers written...
In all seriousness, the complaints about making a bunch of generic ED monsters as an end board glosses over the fact that it's much more problematic that Konami has designed something has horrific for the game as Barronne and Appo. I expect a vid about Konami ruining the game by printing those and generic ED monsters like the Knightmares.
Edit: Woke up to so many replies, expecting hate. Surprised to see so many of you agree with me.
I'm fine with Knightmares (besides the banned ones) because they effectively take their Link rating + a discard to get a use out of them, making them fair. Plus those effects only happen on summon so it's difficult to make use of them as disruption tools... In theory.
The real issue with them lies in IP Masqueraina being generic both in its summoning condition and the link monster it summons.
If Konami made Baronne in 2010 the card would be banned to this day.
There was already that bit about Knightmare Phoenix leading to stronger floodgates in his hot takes Twitter thread.
I've been banging this drum from the rooftops for years now, and it always felt like at most people just wanted to pretend that something else was the problem.
The problem when they give arctype name but their effect and material are very generic.
Patiently waiting for Nemurelia to come to the Master Duel. Her art properly depicts my feelings towards the sets until then.
Theinen Turbo let's gooooo! 🦁
I’ll say this. D/D/Ds felt great to play! And what was really cool was the fact D/D/Ds didn’t Rely on Pendulum Summoning!
They relied on their Effects First and really added some easy accessibility and playability for my Beginner Brain!
With the advent of D/D/D Gilgamesh, they started to lean more towards their own Pendulum summoning rather than pumping out more cards from the Grave or banish zone.
I remember that I originally fell out of the game because pendulums looked like too much of a pain in the ass to learn. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they worked in a pretty intuitive manner, all things considered. Links though, links were exactly what I was worried pendulums were going to be, dear god, just make it stop please.
Links are way easier to understand than Pendulum though. They are synchro's without tuners. And then you just summon them to other zones they point to like you are building a circuit.
Facts links were a mistake
Links are so easy, I do not understand why people have trouble with them
@jessequeen4550 The problem is that Links are too easy to use and access, really, even after the rules of Extra Deck summons were undone.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 personally for me its not that Links are complicated, rather its the opposite. They are simply too generic and for most of MR4 they were the only relevent extra deck mechanic due to them putting restrictions on all other ED monsters as well.
Symphonic Warriors are probably my favorite application of Pendulum monsters, they each fill a role for the band and they work their way to a big board with Generalprobe and Symph Amplifire. My only wish is that the Continuous Spell and Field Spell were treated as Symphonic Warriors or had some in archetype means of searching either.
I think a Pendulum deck that could actually be pretty good if it got the right support is Dinomist. As far as Pendulum goes it’s really quite simple. Summon out a ton of big guys to do nasty damage and protect them with the scales. It doesn’t hurt that Charge and Howling are freaking cracked. Really this deck just needs a little something archetype specific in the extra deck.
Love Dinomist. One of my few decks in Master Duel. And I agree, they need some kind of extra deck boss.
The DIFO Predaplant Pendulum monsters are some of my favorite cards of all time. For a deck that wasn’t Pendulum related in the slightest, they do a great job of making the mechanic feel like a natural fit for the deck.
For the longest time i've wanted a Pendulum Flip Deck, the pendulum summon can help you summon your flip monsters easier and recover them from the extra deck, the scales could be used to flip your guys face-up or facedown to wield your flip effects more effectively as disruption-
I really think they could work really well together-
I don’t understand how pend is complex it’s just a continuous spell that special summons monsters when there is tow of them
Face down extra deck stuff, face up extra deck stuff, pendulum effect vs monster effect, summoning limit from extra deck, summoning limit from hand, board space limitations that need link summons to break, rules about when pendulum monsters go to the extra deck vs when they go to the GY.
All of that wasn't immediately obvious and the MD tutorials barely touched on them, if at all.
I really love how you are talking about this issue in a positive light. Most people hate them by default, but I see a lot of potential for different and interesting gameplay with them.
Just freaking give us more in archetype payoffs for pend magicians, It's not like I want to be summoning borreload anyway.
Vaylantz is one of my favorite archetypes of all time. IMO the most unique gimmick among the pendulum archetypes since you're literally playing Fire Emblem to do a bunch of whacky shit like unironically using senet switch. Forcing monsters into the spell/trap zone as a way of removal isn't entirely new, but this deck does it so well and just makes it so fun to try to do so as a form of interruption.
Also my Vaylantz deck has a Nirvana High Paladin and a World Gears of Theurlogical Demiurgy line which is just funny
Anti spell be like.....
I was reading caption while watching. I was confused why the caption had Andy spell
@@PiantaBroker me furiously googling "andy's bell"
Kashtira Shangri-ira be like:
I am playing Abyss Actors and shangri is not that scary, I can usually play around it, won games aganist it even if it blocked my pendulum zones. It is easy to deal with kaijus or Chaos Angel, dramatic storys dectruction effect also works sometimes, and I play fantasy magic too but it is not that good counter for shangri because it is a battle phase thing, but sometimes it can work, but sometimes it is alredy banished from the deck, because I only run one copy xD.
So kaijus and Chaos Angel the reliable counters.
Kashtira zonelocking the most right or left st zone, all the time. Its like theyre always playing against pendulum.
I remembered when Pendulums was first introduced I was actually excited for the mechanic not because of the combos but the fact that you could of potentially summon a bunch of high level monsters with ease (and with some set up of course) and gave more meaning to run backrow removal (aka MST at the time). I.E. like I honestly thought for the longest time they would of made a Gate Guardian theme where they were pendulum versions of themselves and can use them on the board and scale to help bring out Gate Guardian and other versions of it.
“They feared it would lead to a deck that was exclusively starters and extenders”
Man, can’t believe pend fear mongers predicted Cyberse decks
My favorite Pendulum deck right now is Vaylantz. It like Valmonica changes what the pendulum zone is: instead of scales, this is your base where you summon your units that then move across the board one zone at a time, all of them with a static ignition effect and a trigger effect when they are moved. Since all of the main deck monsters are scale 1, you have to access their fusion monsters with scale 10 in order to pendulum summon. And their newest boss throws the whole concept on its head, swaps as a quick effect, triggering your move effects during your opponents turn. Not to mention their field spells which can move stuff vertically, outing monsters or resummoning in different zone than the bases.
...and then you look at their combo lines and their best end board is Appo, Masquerena, Dyna...
Maybe with the new tribe (Konami please)?
Odd-eyes is my favorite archetype in Yu-Gi-Oh by far. I made a deck around odd-eyes arc pendulum dragons effect and pendulum magicians and it slowly evolved as they added more support into a deck full of nothing but odd-eyes dragons that if they died I can just summon an even more powerful dragon and none of my friends play Yu-Gi-Oh with me anymore because they couldn't beat me
Same here. The Odd Eyes archetype is what I ended up gravitating too when I first started playing Master Duel.
Hear me out, Pendulum should be build around versatility. Each card has two modes, so make those modes different points of interaction. As an example, Archfiend Eccentric is most monster and Spell/Trap removal depending how it’s played. So make more cards like her
I don't actually play Yu-gi-oh, I'm an MTG player and I don't really feel like learning an entire new meta game. BUT. I adore Pendulum. It's such a fucking confusing, weird, and complex mechanic and it tickles my brain.
As someone who was afraid of pendulums when master duel started, I gotta admit that they aren't nearly as difficult as people said they are, they are also really fun
It's not difficult, just tedious af, why tf would I read someone's thesis paper project when I just wanna play card games?
@@PandaHero-yi8pqHonestly a lot of XYZ plays are kinda like that too.
I gotta sit here for 2 minutes and go "wait, which material grants immunity to X? Which of the 4 things I'm looking at is it attached to?"
I've loved pendulums since they came out and have played all of the archetypes in some way shape or form. Pretty much agreed with everything in this video.
One aspect especially that I've been feeling in general, not even just regarding pendulums but all decks, is how generic extra deck bosses are increasingly taking over the extra deck and making archetypal bosses irrelevent. Like why would I play the Vaylantz bosses when I can use the same amount of monsters to make an Apollousa? Why would i summon Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanoo when I can summon Baronne? The list goes on with stuff like Zeus and Accesscode as well. Its starting to make more decks feel homogenized and its kinda tiring.
Pendulums being complex is a myth , up until md was released i was a hardcore yugi boomer , haven't played the game in 10 years + pendulum cards didn't even look like yugioh cards to me , but once i pulled a glossy astrograph and endymion , i liked the way they looked , Endymion was a throw back to breaker the magical warrior so i decided to learn the deck , took me a couple of days max and i got it down , now i absolutely love pendulum . It's really not that hard to grasp . i have since learned to play every pend deck out there with relative ease .
I feel like one of the big problems is also how they return face-up to the extra deck. A lot of Pendulum cards just feel very samey because by design every single one of them wants to destroy themselves to be retained for the big stupid summon later.
no that's just because konami found one fun interaction pendulums could do and decided to give it to every pendulum deck ever
the whole extra deck bit just depends on them being on the field. that's why qli was even the first playable pendulum deck ( imagine how shit it'd be if it couldn't pend back all its tribute fodder ), and why pendulum tuners basically always have restrictions up the ass yet pendulum xyz engines get to just be a thing
Also, in regards to your "big stupid summon", remember only 1 Pendulum Monster can be summoned from the Extra Deck during a Pendulum Summon, and only to the Extra Monster Zone, or to a Main Monster Zone that a Link Monster points to. So in other words, very limited effect
If because they don't make pendulum cards with effect when they are face up extra deck.
Pendulum are pretty much a series of cards without gy effects meaning that they are underpower and need to have effect that trigger on destruction to do something
@@ianbraun271thats only because of the master rule 4 restriction before they didn't need it.
Yeah, I adore pendulum. Its my favorite summoning mechanic, arc-v is my favorite of the series despite it being objectively awful, and I really appreciate this taoe on pendulum
Most people do just say "pend too complicated" and leave it at that. They dont talk about the active design issues of the mechanic, how frustrating the mechanic is as just a monster combo engine, and how interesting things can be done about it
Decks like Superheavy are cringe as fuck, but not because theyre pends. Its because theyre fuck off monster combos that set up a billion negates with handtraps. The pendulum aspect of it is actually pretty cool, scales going back after being used as synchro materials and the like, are incredibly interesting. And Abyss Actors is just my favorite deck, so.
Im glad to see some nuanced takes on pendulums, since they seem so few and far between now.
To this day I believe Vaylantz are the coolest Yu-Gi-Oh archetype gameplay-wise. The pendulums are certainly complex in their combos and they often offer more than one line to get to the end result, but that makes them very interesting to me.
Pendulums were designed with recursion in mind, so the face up extra deck mechanic makes more sense from a design perspecitive than being able to summon pendulum monsters back from the graveyard, for example. This often weirds out new players, but the face up extra deck is (for the most part) basically it's own space that doesn't interact with the face down extra deck at all.
New players who are scared of the pendulum summon essentially vomiting out your whole hand haven't been taught the concept of card advantage yet and don't realize that having to set two scales first can be a fairly costly downside at first.
hard agree on both points, second point really hits home just how blind new players and hell even returning players (and pathetic yugiboomers) can get a fair amount of the time regarding pendulums
As someone climbing the ladder with Abyss Actor, I believe these cards are super fun and easy to understand
I feel like the myth of pendulums being confusing is more of people not wanna learn how they work more than people trying them out and finding them hard to understand
@@Malister23 Endymion is one of my favorite archetypes. That being said, there are too many fucking words on these cards, it feels like I'm a novice Lawyer, shuffling through pages of evidence to find the one important line while there's a timed bomb strapped to my chest that will kill only me and release every bad take I've ever conceived to the mind of every thing on the planet.
Yugioh players have a hard time reading the FIRST line of text, let alone two separate bulleted paragraphs.
Good for you I don’t run into abyss actors ever so do they actually work?
@@scrubzero1735it's an incredibly consistent archetype that pretty much gets you to what you want to do and all the cards compliment each other fairly well. It locks you into itself so running generic stuff is not really the play with Abyss Actors, that being said waking the dragon is an amazing card to run in the deck and that way you can use busted shit from the ED otherwise is in archetype beaters and stuff that nets you the win.
@@hhghfhhfh6146 what the hell about that was dramatic? You got the emotional comprehension of chicken noodle soup?
Do you not understand hyperbole, and comedy through absurdity?
Konami just need to start giving decks their own playable boss monsters. I know most decks use generic boss monsters like appo, but with pendulum it feels especially bad since they rarely end on actual pendulum monsters (Emdymion and Abyss Actor are the only ones I can think of).
D/D/D
Konami does, it's just that at the end of the day, players ask "Is this better than [Generic Extra Deck Monster]?"
Most Extra Pendulum monsters (Like XYZ Pend) are completely unplayable and/or are suboptimal. And that sucks.
Most true Pend strats dont even have an in archetype boss thats usable.
and people will be mad again when we got another pendulum boss monster, same with how people treated apoqliphort killer back in the day
Dinomist has main deck pendulum boss monsters in Rex and Spinos.
The first batch of mythical beasts were a really interesting take on pendulum. Taking advantage of them being spells and monsters, they focused on spell counters (stay with me here) and managed to make them playable by condensing the archetype necesities into the pendulum effects. The Starter was also an extender, the negate was a revival, the backrow removal was a handtrap monster bounce, heck the boss monster was a rota. The problem being they were all four scales and could only activate pendulum effects if there wasnt a card in the other scale, essentially meaning they couldnt pendulum summon, at least not easily. I tried making a competent deck out of them before the endymion pendulums, and a rather embarrassing moment was when i went on the ygopro discord and asked if there was any kind of soul charge effect for pendulum monsters. I was rightfully informed that the pendulum mechanic was soul charge, and lost heart in the deck.
Give pendulum a ghost ogre pendelum hand trap. That goes to the extra deck after used but is just lad on board. They need some type of pendelum disruption, they have very little
My personal pitch for a Pendulum Archetype is one where the monsters gain bonus effects when in the Extra Monster Zone, so any of their monsters become a boss monster when summoned there to mimic Deck Masters in a way
Every time I feel nostalgic for playing Odd-Eyes / Pendulum Magican I try to build the deck only to quit the moment I realize it ends on nothing relevant to archetype nowadays. Generic boss mosters have to go, or at least they should never overshadow the in-archtype payoff / win condition.
Abyss Actors might not be great, but they're one of the only remaining fun Pendulum decks.
I also hope Konami tries to experiment more with Pendulum Cards in non-Pendulum Archtypes. The versatility of being a spell or monster is already interesting enough, Pendulum decks shouldn't live or die based on whether or not you can successfully Pendulum Summon.
I actually love how Vaylantz turns your pendulum monsters into tabletop figures you move across the board, again a very unique and interesting aproach on the mechanic.
One of the biggest issues I see with pend as someone that plays them is that they never have a useable in archetype boss, they always go for generic extra deck options unless forced to otherwise. So they just become an engine.
Decks like DDD are forced to play within their archetype and shows that you can make useful boss monsters for pend decks. Endymion also has end boards built around their archetype with Endymion and the mythical beasts. Vaylantz also kind of have this with Arktos and Grand Duke though they’re more built around using generic extra deck options, but still have something worth using.
I’d love to see more fully built pend decks with actually useful options that fulfills the design goals of the archetypes so they don’t just become another pend soup deck
Odd-Eyes Vortex is a cool in archtype boss you will always summon in its deck. But imo Odd-Eyes is one of the few that have some cool boss monsters.
Unban Kirin then :)
The three Dracoslayer extra deck monsters are pretty solid, but none of them interact on your opponents turn. Two are just resource loopers, while one is a super broken resource looper + removal, so they get tucked into a rank 8 and used for followup.
@@BoxWizardAny Pend deck that can make a Rank 7 gets free access to Vortex through Absolute's effect. Unfortunately.
@@renaldyhaen Nah, bro. Also that isnt a boss.
I really appreciate videos like this. Discussions on card mechanics, what made them work, their impact on the game as a whole, etc. They're always pleasant to listen to and offer a lot of info I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the great vid as always!
Vaylantz is such a fun deck.
They put *some* locks on the deck, but enough that you can go into the extra deck for common boss monsters.
This allowed them to then have in archtype boss monsters that fit the deck so well I can't parse how shit some of them are despite being so fun and quite literally made for the deck.
The one that fuses to a 5+ level guy under an EMZ? Fucking love him. He doesn't do shit turn one but he's so cool.
The guy who sends an enemy monster to the backrow as a spell/trap? Love'em, and it feels so good to set up your combo perfectly to have him on your board.
The one who's fused with 2 level 5 or higher guys? Literally allows to play on the opponent's turn for no reason, mwah!
One thing I'd love is if there were some pendulum monsters with effects that only activate while it's the top face up on the ED.
Like imagine a random Ancient Warrior Pendulum card that acts like a general overseeing the battlefield. It has some quick effect that lets it place itself in a pendulum zone or onto the field, and after that it triggers some kind of effect. I think that'd be really thematic and really cool.
If there was an entire archetype with effects like that, then you'd now have a whole new layer of strategy. Not only setting up your combos, but also thinking about the order of your face up ED, so that you have the right monster at the top of your face up ED at the end of the combo. This also gives pendulums are totally unique identity that isn't simply 'spam monsters'. After all pendulum zone monsters with effects aren't really unique anymore, since the latest archetypes can now put monsters in the S/T zone that have effects while there. So they need something else to really stand out.
I really like the idea of Pends being used for one-of legacy support for older weaker archetypes, but face-up ED order mattering just won't work out.
When can you re-order it? How will both players and the judge keep track all game? What happens if multiple cards are sent there at the same time? Can you choose where newly sent cards go in the order?
MtG had a few "graveyard order matters" cards way back when it first started, and WotC decided to entirely remove that kind of effect because of these issues.
But I could totally see a single Pend monster for an archetype working like you describe, especially that General of the Ancient Warriors example.
@@LadyTsunade777 Yeah if an archetype was built around it they'd need cards to let you reorder the face up ED, and I didn't really consider how it'd work if you linked off for beyond the pendulum or something and multiple were sent at once.
But at least for decks where this was just a 1 of pendulum support it wouldn't cause a bunch of headaches I guess.
3:32 It will forever annoy me that there has never been a pendulum with different numbered scales or even caring about which side of scale it's on, like that could be a whole archetype gimmick. Even in the anime they note which side of scale they are setting, even though it literally never mattered.
Yeah I always assumed there were some with different scales on each side, they even bothered to colour them so they're clearly different but just... well never did. Weird.
@@masterofthelag8414 As of right now they all match. I also completely forgot that one scale is blue and the other is red, good point
As an oldschool ygo player who came back to the game with Duelist Alliance, i was back in the day very hyped for the new mechanic.
"What!?! i can play Dark Magician and Red eyed black Dragon without paying tribute?!?"
This this sounded amazing. Little did i know what a Syncho or XYZ Monster was and did. And how the game changed over the years. ^^''
He didn't mention Vaylantz because it can be a big 15 combo deck thats bad without Electrumike, but it's a genuinely cool and unique gimmick that rewards you for thinking even harder about zone placement and what scales you have, as well as having some of the most unique removal out there. Pure Vaylantz can still produce a pop and a card yoink at least
I feel like so many differnt Yugioh problems end with the result that a big part of the problem are the genric extra deck monsters.
I feel that pendulum and ritual have a lot of hidden synergy, i just wish it got cards for it.
One of the custom card archetypes I have been messing around with is a Zombie Pendulum deck that takes advantage of Extra Deck recursion in their theme; they're zombies so they just want to die and go to the GY, but they're trapped in a samsara loop of summoning from ED (representing a control style to slowly gain advantage) until you make an Xyz who can detach them for their powerful GY effects (representing an endgame combo with the advantage you gained from the ED loop). Would be cool to see a similar idea for real in the game.
K so I just wanna point out 2 cards real quick: Predaplant Buffolicula and Triantis. Predaplants are one of my favourite archetypes and these guys are part of why. They're a small bit of pendulum flavour in an otherwise non-pendulum deck that can lead to all sorts of wacky shit that plays in with the archetype, all while enabling the deck to have access to pendulum summoning which helps get around their natural weakness to Scorpio getting Ashed. In addition Predaplants are already a deck that's sorta meant to be splashed in other things, and they work well for that by giving those splashed into decks access to pendulum summoning. Lemme tell ya, pendulum summoning Stratos & Shadow Mist is a hell of a drug when you get to do it. I think that legacy support as pendulums or just adding a pend or two to new archetypes is a design space that's been sorely unexplored.
This is why the shs support worked so well as pends,you essentially double the card space you have designing the cards so you need less of them,i really hope that continues
The 1 archetype I want to see get pendulums is Infernity (mainly for finally putting Infernity monsters in S/T)
Halfway through the video I think it's funny most of those points apply to Dragon Link and Dark Warrior too, but I really like how you pointed out abt Pendulum's uniqueness and possibilitiew
We need a full Pendulum Ritual deck. It would be a similar design space to what Megaliths do (act as both Ritual Monster and Ritual Spell) but be fairer for your opponent and allow for a one card combo - something Ritual decks in general need more than any other summoning method.
A Pendulum Xyz deck based on high levels like 9-12 would also be neat. Rank 9-12 doesn't see a lot of access outside of the occasional Rank 9 or 10 strat, and giving them a Pendulum flair would allow them to have a design niche.... Not to mention, say, a deck specializing in Rank 11s won't be able to abuse Level 10 Synchros or Baguska pass like most decks.
I’m sorry but the two pendulum numbers NEVER BEING DIFFERENT has literally, on multiple occasions, kept me up at night…
Vaylantz is so creative and is my favorite deck. It's got its issues but with them all spawning and getting to move the board really makes it feel like it had to be pendulum
As someone who watched reruns of DM and 5Ds a lot as a kid, pendulums sounded absolutely awesome! As someone who has played Magic The Gathering for quite awhile off and on, the mechanic also sounded very unique. Untreaded ground that was ripe for something interesting for casual and competitive players alike! Yet as someone actually trying to find fun pendulums on Master Duel... I found them lacking. Majespectre was cool but just looking at them felt like they were unfinished - then I learned a key card was banned - so I never bothered. Performapals feel like they are mostly a way to use Odd Eyes but I got them to kinda work.
Pendulum monsters have a fantastic concept, I hope Konami makes them live up to their potential as something more than putting my entire hand on the board
I feel like two other parts with the idea of Pendulums that haven't been explored all that much yet are self Summoning Pendulums (like the Valiants) and something like a trap card variation of Pendulums.
Valiants have obviously created an interesting play style of Summoning themselves and moving across the board, but I feel like it would be interesting to see an archetype who's Pendulum summon is of the Scales themselves or something.
I would also like to see a Pendulum trap. Maybe something that helps Infernity? We all know those players were setting their monsters there to begin with
Konami could retrain Infernity Spear and Shield (from the mangq) into a pend pair tbh.
I had the thought that Konami could re-invent Trap Monsters to be Pendulum Monsters too.
I love this mini essay videos, theyre so few and in between in the yugioh sphere nowadays.
Vaylantz is probably one of the coolest pendulum decks made in the last few years. They are unapogetically complex and force both you and your opponent to play an entirely different game of tactics and troop management while your opponent tries toclaw their way back to their original gameplan. Its great.
Bonus to ocg players for using the fields as complements to more generic pend decks,it's very amusing to realize they transform any deck into a pend deck!
Something something Fossil Dyna bad Vaylantz to blame
Vaylantz in master duel rn is literally just generic extra deck and normal summon that monster that prevents special summons
They always get rid of the field spell after their combo. Either by popping one or just activating secret village
I haven't kept up with a lot of archetypes, especially Pendulum, but I'd like them to play around with the Pendulum Scales more. Have monsters that have different effects depending upon if the scale is even, odd, the same number, or different numbers.
I think the extra deck pendulum monsters were kinda cool with the whole "When it is destroyed, put it up as a scale" because it's like the pendulum swinging but from forward to back instead of the side-to-side it originally was.
ALSO HAVE DIFFERENT SCALE NUMBERS DEPENDING UPON THE POSITION! It'll make the art make sense!
As a new player, pendulums may be a problem, but to be honest the real problem is the base game on its own is already way too overly complex.
Whoever designed Yugioh confused "complexity" with "depth". The truly great card games don't need complexity to have depth.
Yugioh really is just a fancy, messy house built on a terrible foundation.
You mentioned this in passing regarding Anti-spell, saying "there should not be a card that says you can't play your deck", which I think deserves a video to itself, because I think "The Floodgate Problem" is a thing worth bringing up, not just that people hate playing against floodgates but that floodgates themselves need to be "you can't play your deck" to do anything.
6:57 forgot the 3 negate borreload savage dragon, and a hot red dragon archfiend abyss.(one of my favorite cards but is just abused by other decks not even playing RDA)
Because RDAs are technically generic bosses while the actual Deck is Resonators, which have been complete garbage until Pulse of the King. Which would you rather summon RDA in, a nonfunctional pile of bricks that will never actually summon him or Rokkets, which also have access to Savage Dragon for the ultimate DARK Dragon Synchro team-up?
I involuntarily yelled "Oh God" the second I saw this vid (Pend Player here). Ill edit in my thoughts after finishing the vid.
WARNING. Essay below (also this is the edit)
Full disclosure, I wan't to start this off by saying that I mainly play Pendulum decks due to my own nostalgia and personal preferences. I the only reason I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh was because of Arc-V. Pendulum Magicians was my first proper deck and I've mained it ever since. I love the feeling of playing combo decks, not just Pendulum decks, and attepting to memorize lines and playing against my opponents interruptions. I recognize that aggressive combo decks have flaws in their inherent design, but I've decided in my mind to like them in spite of their flaws. But that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge them.
I pretty much agree with most of MBT's opinions. Pretty much the only differences in Pendulum decks for the pilot is how you get your combos, how big your engine is, and how your deck treats scales. That isn't inherently a problem, but the bigger issues comes with the endboards. Pendulum decks typically dont have that many GOOD exclusive extra deck monsters and mostly try to rush out generic staples. On top of this, Extra Deck Pendulum monsters, an idea that Konami barely explored, see little to no play despite the potential of implimentation they could have. Say what you will about other toxic combo strats in the modern day, at least they have at least one unique element to their endboard.
Konami needs to stop putting Pendulum its own little time out corner and flesh out each Pendulum archetype to the point were they each become their own original thing instead of being a cursed hodgepodge of playable cards. Pendulum Magician/Odd Eyes/Performapal works in this manner mostly because the cards were designed for that, and Im saying that as a dude who mains Pend Mag and Odd Eyes. But when you take a look at each Pend deck individually, you see some problems. Odd Eyes' Extra Monsters are decent, but the deck itself doesn't see that much play and its best monster is completely generic thanks to Absolute Dragon. Pendulum Magicians doesn't even have a playable extra deck monster besides Timestar, and he's a combo piece. Dracoslayers Extra Deck is all also combo pieces. Solfa has its own good bosses with basic interruptions, But Gran Coolia just ends up being a negate with a potentially huge body (its a good card that works with the archetype, but its still really limited in how it works with Solfa's mechanics). They are all forced into the same endboard that ultimately just results in a shit-ton of interruptions. All thoughtful play ends after your turn ends.
So, I have some suggestions.
1. Older Pend Decks need exclusive boss monsters that interact with Pendulum mechanics in a unique way and allow for further differentiation.
2. Like MBT suggested, generic power-cards like Apollusa need to be less common. If you'd ask me, I'd take a usable Pend Mag boss monster over 4-Mat Apollusa pass. And Baronne shouldn't have been generic. And Accesscode should have been Cyberse-locked.
3. Ban Anti-Spell. If IO got banned, this needs to go too.
4. Konami needs to keep making unique Pendulum strats that feel like their own thing.
Anyways, Thats my thoughts, this was a great video, and have a good day (whoever is reading this)!
Could be fun to see an Archetype that actually WANTS you to have matching scales to make their effects work instead of using the scales just for summons.
Sounds like a funny concept.
Maybe a whole archetype that focusses on manipulating your scales and their pend effects all read "if you control two matching scales you can summon this". Plus two big boss monsters that start with scales 0 and 12 with the goal to match them to summon both. Thematically it would be this "two halfs of a medal" thing...two counterparts that unleash their true power when brought together.
(probably would need some heavy restrictions so you don't just abuse these big scales for whatever generic plays)
Solfachords
@@Populon993 Of yeah... maybe they need matching scale so one of their normal summons can summon them from the scale zone?
@@kauanjos3199 they only care if its odd or even.
I'd like to give a shoutout to the amazoness pendulum cards. They function for spewing out your hand like a normal pendulum deck if you really feel like it, but amazoness doesn't really need to do that, and even if they're must-haves, there's only the two of them, and you wouldn't really call it a pendulum deck. Instead, the amazoness pendulums exist to enhance what Amazoness was always wanting to do: get out their big fusion boss monsters and roll over the enemy with big numbers. You use one as fusion material then it puts itself in your pendulum zone and buffs your stuff.
Would you be happier Pend Magicians had a "Negate Magician" or "Magicians Blackout"? (Well i mean time pendgraph lol) Kirin being banned seems to signify no.
Even if you ban all the ED ygo is bad boss monsters, ive always liked Pend for how it gets to its end board through generating advantage by popping its own cards and chain blocking their playmakers. Not the end board itself. To say this is the Pendulum Mechanics fault for having good generic cards to make an endboard feels like a complaint at YGO combo decks more than just Pend.
Id love to setup Time Pendgraph Control every game but the game isnt slow enough to let us do that anymore, they gotta print either a strong pend exclusive end board or just let pend have their tools to step back into their limelight. The latter being the less interesting
2:07 I stepped away during Pendulum because it took all my semi-rogue decks I had been playing, and chucked them all in the bin of unplayability.
Previously I felt like if I threw enough staples and some care into any archetype, I could at least win enough games to have some fun. Dualist Alliance killed that, "that" being my fun.
11:17 Agree, In fact a lot of the super-powerful Extra Deck cards just need to go. It's not just Pendulum, but almost every deck that isn't massively xenophobic (and even some that are) just ends on the same couple of big idiots we have been seeing for ages. Time for Assasscode Talker and Bar-on-the-Floor to go too. The extra deck should be a bunch of in-archetype monsters that facilitate the decks strategy, or a swiss-army-knife of useful but not game-warping cards. Not a bunch of nukes that everyone gravitates towards.
From my experiencie pendulum were the most broken shit before MR4, but if anyone really thinks pendulum is complex or broken in this day and age they are just dumb
Realitsically, it only saw real viability three times. Once with Qli (floodgate deck), once with PePe (died after a week), and once with Metalfoes (engine)
@@kichiroumitsurugi4363 Tear, Kash and now Snake eyes, allowed to exist and be unbelievably unfair for months and months but Pend gets any kind of relevance and they get shot down almost instantly
4:34 i REALLY appreciate and love the red rescue team music
Cool video Joseph but how come we're getting all these video essay type videos and not getting the Vrains retrospective 🤔
I’ve been playing yugioh through duel links, master duel, and TCG local play for like 7/8 years and odd eyes is by far my favorite archetype to use while playing. I definitely think that banning stuff like baronne/apollousa alongside nasty floodgates like anti spell would be a MASSIVE step in the right direction. Give old archetypes new in-archetype legacy support as well so that end boards for different archetypes actually look and play different
I will be the first to admit, I was one of the people who pendulum made me leave the game, and i didn't come back until the VERY end of master rule 4. (I remember building a single deck for maser rule 4 and playing it maybe twice before the rules changed)
FOR ME, the reason I left is because as someone who had played since day one, the game was always about managing resources, and everything about pendulums at the time seemed to spit in the face of that, at least for me. Now i realize that the whole "resource war" angel had been on the decline for the game for a while, and I was probably just in need of a stepping way from the hobby for a few years anyway.
Still never even considered PLAYING a pendulum deck tho. XD
Vaylantz might have never caught on but the concept behind them is admitidly pretty cool lol
Is there some pendulum topic trend happening? I saw some reddit posts about pendulums and yugiboomers' hated summons. Now i see an upload of MBT.
edit: after watching the video, I wish everyone has this mindset, especially with mechanic identity. I love Konami doing weird stuff with pendulums.
I wish you had gone more into the history of how the switch from mr3 to mr4/5, the removal of the pendulum scale zones, and the ability to special summon as many pend monsters from the extra deck on the crackback crippled the mechanic further..
I will agree that Pendulum summoning from the extra deck did need a nerf because summoning 5 monsters that your opponent destroyed is absolutely crazy in a grind game and unfair for the opponent, however it didn't need to become even more pay to play where you were practically forced to buy some link monsters in order to have some sort of board on the crackback (and even then most likely you'll lose the link monster so it is very rare you'll be able to pend more than one from the ED to begin with on your next turn).
When Pend was in its earlier days during Mr4/5 you were practically going minus 2 in order to hopefully be able to summon 3 monsters from hand and end on a board with one ED monster and that single pend monster.. That was horrific because you no longer had the ability to rely on the fact that you had some defense from the face up ED since to be honest every Pendulum deck pretty much forces you to have to top deck since you used all your resources on your first turn, and your opponent isn't afraid of any backrow so they don't have to play around anything to combo off how they want to (and even if you end on a board with a negate via a monster on your field.. your opponent has full knowledge of it instead of uncertainty which makes it so much easier to play around).
This is how we ended up with a lackluster mechanic in the end because Konami is too afraid to make drastic changes to the mechanic because of MR3, but in turn it just ruined the mechanic for the foreseeable future. The speed of the game in my opinion is fast enough that topdecking to restart that pend board is impossible, so they should bring back the special pend zones, and at minimum make it so we can summon at least 2-3 pend monsters from the face up ED each turn and it doesn't require a link. A fully functional mechanic doesn't need to require another fully functional mechanic in order to use it (imagine if every single fusion monster required a certain type of ED monster to summon them, the fusion would have to incredibly busted, the fusion spell would need to be busted like sending from ED and Deck, or otherwise the mechanic would just see no comp or casual play because of how much you get set back on card avantage and board presence).
You should be able to use each of them separately and still be able to win with a strategy dedicated to that one and only that one mechanic.
Nemorelia is a really cool idea for an archetype, it's just a shame that all her big beasty boys have really terrible effects. I totally agree that generic negation tools like Barone and Apollousa really need to leave the format ASAP, so that board building doesn't put me to sleep 50% of the time. Truth be told, my fear of generic end boards was the main reason I disliked xyz when they first came out. I thought that they'd make these massive toolboxes for every rank, which would make the extras feel very samey. A statement that feels very funny in hindsight considering how much certain Ranks were favored over others. Ranks 4 and 8 have massive toolboxes that carry some decks to this day, while Rank 1s have a single decent monster in Ensomblue and everything else is pretty rough
She has alternative Beastie Boys in the form of Mayosenjus for additional Scales and Sphinxes for an Injection Fairy Lily the size of a dump truck.
@@autobotstarscream765 Lol, the Sphinxes are horrible and the Yosenjus have a completely different playstyle that probably doesn't mesh well
@@munchrai6396 ruclips.net/video/JRcdrps15Ns/видео.htmlsi=jSGiBxcmoo5v19Vt
One time i was playing Pendulums against someone, and some dude walking by saw my board and it was the first time he'd seen Pendulums in his life and he started calling it a Magic rip-off because it's "resource management" and he wouldn't listen when i explained why Pendulums are totally different, instead he just kept getting tilted that yugioh "is just MTG now". dude got mad salty.
ironic since Pendulums are one of the least MTG things about yugioh, and og yugioh had the most MTG things about it.
I'm happy to see Pendulum talked about more. It's a mechanic that's special to me for getting me back into the game which I have stayed. But it's become stagnant and has potential to be fixed like how Fusion was.
This time I really enjoyed the style of the video (flow wise, as in the way you appear to be blunt and authentic) so very much props
Funfact about the complexity of Pendulum: TheDuelLogs made a bunch of Shorts explaining summon mechanics and other game mechanics like targeting, chains, cost vs. effect and such. It's called "Explained quickly and easily"....so far, the part about Pendulums is the only entry that isn't a short, but a 12 minute regular video.
No one can stop me from enjoying my yummy pendulum soup
I always hated pendulum due to how PePe and Qliphort pretty much traumatized me, however D/D/D is a deck that I just absolutely fell in love with since day 1 since not only did Akaba Reiji (the character in the anime) present the deck in such a cool way, it also played very different then your traditional pendulum deck where you set up 2 scales and just... vomit your entire hand on the board to go for generic monsters. Post structure deck the deck became a combo heavy deck that put up 2 generic monsters on the field (potentially 3 if you wanna count void ogre dragon) being Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon & Hope Harbinger, now post Bach the deck has its own identity where you can unironically play 13-15 D/D/D monsters in your extra deck and everything is engine. Not only that, due to the "new" (it's been a while now) support, D/D/D can be played with just enough engine to be consistent with its various lines but also enough non engine to interact with your opponent going 2nd on turn 1. The only thing that saddens me is that in 2023 D/D/D unfortunately still gets "meh" support but all in all, Bach was arguably the best thing to ever happen for D/D/D's making it very viable throughout multiple formats even after Kitchen Sink/3-Axis Noodlefiber pile. Konami has been doing a great job at finding new ways to utilize pendulum monsters but I wouldn't mind seeing another combo deck like D/D/D that utilizes the pendulum mechanic in a unique way (and not have a link monster be a pendulum call on steroids).
Yeah the pend talk is cool but the Wigglytuffs’ guild ost is always a banger, love PMD.
Before they made the newer archetypes, I wondered if making the Extra Deck size limit include the face-up pend monsters would make it easier to design more powerful and different pendulum cards. So, for example, if I have 15 cards in my Extra Deck, destroyed pends would go to the GY, but if I had say 5 (either bc I used some of them or I intentionally made it smaller), I had 10 spots open for pend monsters to go to.
Anchamoufrite meta 😎
They could go back to having isolated Pendulum Zones and the Pendulums would be "fine", if anything it'd at least help them avoid getting locked out of gameplay against Shangri-Ira. Anti-Spell is legal because Runick and Sky-Striker exist. Though having Pendulum scales set as monster effects could skirt around Anti-Spell (aka, it's not activating spells it's a monster effect placing the Pendulum onto the field), though it'd hurt the Endymion and spellcaster gameplay. They could include Pendulum monsters that could summon themselves to destroy Anti-Spell, but that's a silver bullet for a silver bullet, not exactly ideal.