It is a sad state of affairs of what this game has become.  please follow me through my thoughts as I explore what I think has gone wrong with this game.  the spirit of this game has been lost and all originality, creativity, and thought have been taken out of this game in hopes of victory.

what got me hooked into yugioh was the show.  amazing show.  watching the characters make all their plays.   seeing these villains set up these sweet combos and the hero barely pulling off a victory.  needless to say, the game looked fun.  But what i got when i played others was a very different story.

when i start playing my fellow duelest at a fairly large card store was not a wide variety of decks; i was hoping to play against light decks, dragon decks, fiend decks, exodia decks, decks of every shape, size, and form.  of course, i expected many people to run the same cards, that is why the card is called a staple.  but what i got was way worse: almost everyone was playing the same basic deck.  you all know the deck:

1x change of heart
1x confiscation
1x dark hole
1x delinquent duo
1x harpies feather duster
1x raigeki
1x heavy story
1x jinzo
1x imperial order
1x the forceful sentry
1x yata-garasu
1x exiled force
1x fiber jar
1x graceful charity
1x pot of greed
1x sinister serpent
1x snatch steal
1x witch of the black forest
3x don zaloog
1x injection fairy lily
1x messenger of peace
2x mystic tomato
1x white magical hat
1x sangan
3x raigeki break
3x torrential tribute
2x nobleman of crossout
2x spirit reaper
3x mystical space typhoon

sorry to lose you in all that, but u all see what deck that is, im sure you either have one or played one: the hand disruption/control/mess with u/uber rare and expensive deck.  it had lots of restricted cards, costs a fortune, and is pretty much the ONLY tourney, viable deck [at least, according to all the genius @ COTD].  given few changes here and there for peoples personal preferences, but the idea is still the same.

so, to begin, why is this the only tournement vaible deck? many reasons.  first off, in yugioh, hand manipulation is devistating.  you draw only one card per turn [giving u dont use POG or charity, two more cards for...more cards].  since card drawing power is extremely limited, destroying the hand [and preventing the draw with yata] is, dare i say it, broken.  there are so FEW cards that counter hand destruction and those that do counter ARENT TOURNEMENT VIABLE.  so everyone fights fire with fire and hopes they draw thier best cards first.

next, why else is this deck so viable? because it naturally packs lots and lots of counter...to much compared to other card games.  above you see lots of monster destruction easy to pull off, plenty of hand destruction, and good magic/trap destruction all in a small deck package.  and there is so much more counter left out like basic CT’S like magic and trap jammer, 7 tools, solemn judgement.  this game has so much counter, its hard to do anything without fear of it getting messed with.  in DBZCCG and Magic, the thought of your opponent foiling your plots with a counter agent RARELY crosses your mind and this spoils the game, IMO.  also, one last note, the only counter this game lacks...is hand destruction counter...surprise surprise.

so what happened?  well, in the start, i believed everything was great, everyone picked a theme, ran with it, and everyone had fun.  but as expansions came out and thier desire to win grew, things changed.  they had to win so they put lots of thought on how to do so:   getting the rarest cards and following the advice of COTD and logic, they brought themselves to the conclusions i have brought up or will do so: yata control wins.  which brings me onto the next point: what makes decks and cards viable:

after reviewing many of the COTD, i see a pattern: tribute monsters are compared to jinzo: for one tribute u get 2400 attack and counter trap, if its 2 tributes, its one too many and wont do as much as jinzo does for traps.  and if its 1 tribute, its not strong enough to beat jinzo.  and magic cards are based on thier ability to be instantly played to do alot like wiping out everything with raigeki or hfd.  and if its non tribute, its gotta be as strong as gemini elf.  and remember, u monster will stay out for one turn, if that, cuz everyone and their second cousin can obliterate that monster in 10 seconds.  and if its a trap, assume its countered or jinzo’d as soon as its played.  with all this logical reasoning and thinking, no wonder u come down to the conclusion that hand destruction is the only way to go.

now dont get me wrong, jinzo is good and so is all the others, i play them too.  but my main deck is also dark magician based.  this is the part where u call me crazy.  but its true.  and its leet [baring the obvious exception of the deck type ive been complaining about, that cant be beat unless u use it].  i have the most fun, not playing these decks but something original.  i had the most refreshing match against a light based deck using thunder nyan nyan/airknight/soul of purity and light based deck.  and with a lil work, it might have won too.

i hope that in reading this that you see what i see: that the spirit and creativity of yugioh is lost!  that people dont even use the coolest looking cards.   what i hope to accomplish is that everyone put down thier expensive deck and built a real deck using thier brains.  no one says you ahve to give up jinzo or IO, just that you look back to DM and BEWD and say hey, he is cool, lets make something with it.