(Note: This article
assumes that you either know, or can look up, the basic rules to
Yu-Gi-Oh!.)
Most of you out
there know me for my opinions on video games. However, like most
people, I have more than a single interest. Lately, I have been
absolutely obsessed with the study of Collectible Card Game design.
I've been playing a lot of them, and reading a ton about them. From
the common pitfalls to the tricks used to improve the playing
experience, and even how attract sales.
As a child, my
experience with different collectible card games wasn't what one
might expect. Even though it was (and is) one the top cards games of
all time, I had never given Magic: The Gathering a fair shot. Yet as
an fan of Saturday morning cartoons, I was a huge Yu-Gi-Oh! fan
growing up. Naturally, that meant that I was also an avid player of
the card game based on the anime. Even today, I see a certain charm
to the game. That said, as I learn more about other card games like
Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, the more I start to identify
problems in my old fling. I tell you all of this so that you realize
that what I'm about to say comes from a place of love: Yu-Gi-Oh! is a
bad card game.
One of the biggest
problems in Yu-Gi-Oh! is the unrelenting Power Creep that goes as
more and more cards are introduced. Power Creep, for the unaware, is
the process in which old cards are no longer played. Not because they
are banned in tournaments, but because new cards are so much better
than players who use the old cards are in an obvious disadvantage.
To an extent, this is common among Collectible Card Games. What
separates Yu-Gi-Oh! from the rest is just its prevalence. Among the
people who have played for the long time, a common complaint is that
the game, as it stands today, is significantly faster than it used to
be. Back when it was first released, summoning even one monster with
2500 ATK or more was almost seen as a reward for successfully
controlling the field long enough.
In comparison, with
the newer cards, it is quite common to see multiple 2500+ ATK
monsters on grace the field with the first couple of turns. Summoning
a bunch in one turn is such a regular occurrence that Raigeki, a card
that was on the original ban list since it started in 2004 and
remained there for over a decade, is now legal once more. Way back
when the ban list was first introduced, and effect that destroyed all
of an opponent’s monsters put them at such a disadvantage that it
was deemed too powerful for tournament play. At the time,
there was even a running joke that Raigeki would likely never be
unbanned. Now, tough monsters are so easy to summon that such an
effect barely matters all that much. Yu-Gi-Oh! has become a textbook
example of Power Creep for exactly this reason.
For a while, these
changes couldn't really be classified as Power Creep, even if they
were stronger than old mechanics. Synchro monsters were a good
example of this. Because it's a lot easier to place Tuners and
non-Tuners on the field than it is to get an exact combination of
monsters and Polymerization in play, Synchro monsters were
objectively easier and faster to summon than Fusion monsters.
However, it is worth noting that Fusion monsters were incredibly rare
to see in play. Aside from a few deck types, like Cyber Dragons, that
relied on it, Fusion would rarely come up in either casual or
competitive simple due to the abundance of other options. Synchro
wasn't so much an example of Power Creep as much as it was a stronger
version to an otherwise ineffective and unused mechanic.
The problems really
started with the advent of XYZ monsters. Even with Synchros, it was
hard to take advantage of their increased utility without formulating
a deck around them. This drawback was completely lost on the XYZ
monsters. To summon an XYZ monster, one would overlay multiple other monsters whose LV is equal to that monsters rank. The monsters used in the summoning would be attached to the XYZ monster as material, which can be normally detached in order to use their effects.
In competitive play, players do themselves a disservice if
their Extra Deck contains any less than the 15 card maximum. Even if
their deck would otherwise not take need to use XYZ in order to do
well, the only gain a further advantage by having that option there.
Unlike Synchros, the only requirement for an XYZ summoning is to have
multiple of the same level in a deck. It is actually harder to think
of decks that don't meet that condition that it is to think of ones
that do. Since the vast majoring of XYZ monsters are also of Rank 4,
and most monsters in the game are LV 4, this is doubly true. Because
making use of this mechanic was such a no-brainer and required very
little changes to most decks, players would need a very strong reason
not to use them. This is a significant part of what people talk about
when they use the phrase “Power Creep”.
And part of why
this Power Creep unchecked is because Yu-Gi-Oh! lacks the concept of
a standard format. In most competitive CCGs, as new sets are added to
the game, old sets are both phased out and removed from tournament
play. This means that at any given time, in the competitive scene,
there are only a very specific number of sets in play.
While this is
mostly done so that new players are free the baggage of thousands
upon thousands of older cards, there is a dual purpose at work here.
By working under the assumption that old sets will eventually be
phased out, designers can work with a certain degree of freedom. They
are able to take risks and implement new mechanics under the
assumption that if they become unpopular, or worse, too powerful,
they can just stop making cards the support that mechanic and slowly
let it die as new sets are released. Magic: The Gathering has done
this with a number of mechanics over the years, by simply not making
or reprinting cards that use certain systems.
Yu-Gi-Oh! does not
have this freedom, because sets are never rotated out. With the
exception of individual cards that have been banned or limited, every
card that has ever been released is still officially legal in
competitive play. And despite having no mechanism to phase out poor
mechanics, Konami continually experiments with new ones. It is
inevitable that some of them will end up being objectively faster, or
more effective, than their predecessors. With these better sets out in the wild, it's impossible to keep new cards balanced with respect to that which came before.
Collectible cards
game are still businesses at their core. If no one wants to use the
cards from the newest sets, then sales are going to drop. The
simplest solution, that requires the least amount of effort, would
then be to just make the newer sets even better than the old sets. In
the case of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the absence of a standard format makes this
even more obvious of a solution since cards don’t ever get phased
out. When the next set gets released, if it’s cards aren’t even
better than the last ones, we’ll suffer the same problem again.
Through it’s very systems, Yu-Gi-Oh! has almost forced itself into
a situation of sustained Power Creep. It’s worked for them over the
past few years, but there’s only so much room to go. Konami is playing a dangerous game, and it had an immense
negative impact on the Yu-Gi-Oh! meta-game, as it stands today.
Again, as someone
who has played the game since I was in middle school, I will always
have a certain fondness for Yu-Gi-Oh!. But despite, or maybe even
because, of that fondness, I have massive problems with the current
state of the game. Even worse, I don't know if there is even a good
solution. If anything, Yu-Gi-Oh! serves as a cautionary tale for why
CCGs need to be careful in game design and the introduction of new
cards/mechanics. In hindsight, the Power Creep seen in its current
state was not only obvious, but inevitable.
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